A realistic trust model evaluation platform for the Social Internet of Things (REACT-SIoT)

The Social Internet of Things (SIoT) enables cross-organisational collaboration for various industrial applications. However, evaluating trust models within such environments remains challenging due to context-dependent dynamics in SIoT environments. Existing evaluation platforms often rely on overly domain-specific or generic datasets, overlooking the inherent uncertainty and dynamicity of real-world SIoT settings. Additionally, there is a lack of practical platforms to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of trust models across diverse scenarios. In this study, we present the Realistic Trust Model Evaluation Platform for the Social Internet of Things (REACT-SIoT) to rigorously assess trust models in SIoT environments, thereby facilitating trustworthy collaboration for sustainable IoT transformations. REACT-SIoT addresses 21 identified requirements essential for simulating a realistic SIoT environment, including categories of heterogeneity, dynamicity, incompleteness, uncertainty, interdependency, and authentic real-world dynamics. We developed a configurable evaluation procedure that mitigates dataset bias and supports the assessment of both existing and newly developed trust models under various scenario-dependent settings. A real-world example demonstrates the platform’s capability to satisfy these requirements effectively. Our analysis reveals that REACT-SIoT meets all defined requirements and outperforms existing evaluation environments based on accuracy, trust convergence, and robustness criteria. The platform has been successfully applied to existing trust models, showcasing its applicability and enabling comparative assessments that were previously constrained by disparate evaluation settings and datasets. In conclusion, REACT-SIoT offers a highly- adaptable evaluation framework that ensures unbiased and comprehensive trust model assessments in SIoT environments. This platform bridges a critical gap in trust evaluation research, enabling the comparison and validation of trust models across diverse, realistic scenarios, thereby supporting the development of more resilient and trustworthy collaborative SIoT systems. • Definition of a realistic Social Internet of Things (SIoT) environment for trust evaluation. • Proposed a trust model evaluation platform that implements a realistic SIoT environment. • Proposed a Canberra Transportation Case Study as a concrete instance to evaluation trust models. • Comprehensive evaluation of trust models in the context of the Canberra Transportation Case Study.