  The application of decentralized reputation systems is a promising approach
to ensure cooperation and fairness, as well as to address random failures and
malicious attacks in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks. However, they are potentially
vulnerable to liars. With our work, we provide a first step to analyzing
robustness of a reputation system based on a deviation test. Using a mean-field
approach to our stochastic process model, we show that liars have no impact
unless their number exceeds a certain threshold (phase transition). We give
precise formulae for the critical values and thus provide guidelines for an
optimal choice of parameters.
