B.1 Trust Valuation in Decentralized Digital Infrastructures

- Suzette Kahlert -

One of the main goals in the research area B1 “Trust and Trust Assessment in Social Networks” is to establish complex socio-technical trust infrastructures that are being used and valued for their protection of privacy. One of the main questions that emerges from this problem context is: How can digital networks that value and protect privacy become more important and useable? Therefore, it is required to research trust valuation as complex social practices that oscillate between expertise about technical infrastructures, technological amateurs, values of privacy, usability, and actual usage. One concept to secure privacy and work against the centralization of data is to build decentralized networks. It is important to note that even in decentralized networks a lot of issues around trust and privacy remain or are simply relocated, e.g. which server in a decentralized network can be trusted by technological amateurs. Therefore, the main research question of the current dissertation project in research area B1 is: How is trust valuation in decentralized networks established, (de-)stabilized, constructed and transferred into technical artefacts and subject positions?

Tandem partner: B.3 , D.3