*3.1.2. Rating component*

This component is responsible for evaluating the reputation of an observed node. Assume that node A wants to evaluate a reputation value for a node B that may or may not be directly monitored by A. Then, the reputation value of B evaluated by A is a number that reflects how good or bad node B behaves from the perspective of node A considering:


 Monitoring results gathered from other nodes observing B and shared with A as second hand information, if any.

Once a reputation value for B is formed by A, A will decide about a certain level of trust relationship with B. Notice that, according to these specifications of the rating module, it is not necessary that A and B are neighbors to each other. Thus, A can have a trust relation with any node in the network. This, in fact, helps in generalizing the framework to allow the use of various routing protocols that differ in the obtainable level of hop information. For example, with DSR, in which multi-hop information can be collected, this module provides the ability to build trust relations among all nodes from source to destination. Also, on the other extreme, the module can work with geographic routing protocols like GPSR and GEAR with one hop information.
