{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,10]],"date-time":"2025-12-10T12:21:24Z","timestamp":1765369284629,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":19,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,20]],"date-time":"2017-11-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1511136000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Service commissions, which are claimed by Ad-Networks and Publishers, are susceptible to forgery as non-human operators are able to artificially create fictitious traffic on digital platforms for the purpose of committing financial fraud. This places a significant strain on Advertisers who have no effective means of differentiating fabricated Ad-Reports from those which correspond to real consumer activity. To address this problem, we contribute an advert reporting system which utilizes opportunistic networking and a blockchain-inspired construction in order to identify authentic Ad-Reports by determining whether they were composed by honest or dishonest users. What constitutes a user\u2019s honesty for our system is the manner in which they access adverts on their mobile device. Dishonest users submit multiple reports over a short period of time while honest users behave as consumers who view adverts at a balanced pace while engaging in typical social activities such as purchasing goods online, moving through space and interacting with other users. We argue that it is hard for dishonest users to fake honest behaviour and we exploit the behavioural patterns of users in order to classify Ad-Reports as real or fabricated. By determining the honesty of the user who submitted a particular report, our system offers a more secure reward-claiming model which protects against fraud while still preserving the user\u2019s anonymity.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi9040088","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,20]],"date-time":"2017-11-20T11:35:45Z","timestamp":1511177745000},"page":"88","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Behavioural Verification: Preventing Report Fraud in Decentralized Advert Distribution Systems"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Stylianos","family":"Mamais","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Roath, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2701-7809","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"George","family":"Theodorakopoulos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Roath, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2017, May 10). 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Real time click fraud prevention using multi-level data fusion. Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science, San Francisco, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Juels, A., Stamm, S., and Jakobsson, M. (2007, January 6\u201310). Combating click fraud via premium clicks. Proceedings of 16th USENIX Security Symposium on USENIX Security Symposium, Boston, MA, USA."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"21","DOI":"10.1145\/1764873.1764877","article-title":"Fighting online click-fraud using bluff ads","volume":"40","author":"Haddadi","year":"2010","journal-title":"ACM SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Iqbal, M.S., Zulkernine, M., Jaafar, F., and Gu, Y. (2016, January 7\u20139). Fcfraud: Fighting click-fraud from the user side. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE 17th International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering (HASE), Orlando, FL, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/HASE.2016.17"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Faou, M., Lemay, A., D\u00e9cary-H\u00e9tu, D., Calvet, J., Labr\u00e8che, F., Jean, M., Dupont, B., and Fernande, J.M. (2016, January 12\u201314). Follow the traffic: Stopping click fraud by disrupting the value chain. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE 14th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST), Auckland, New Zealand.","DOI":"10.1109\/PST.2016.7907001"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pizzolante, R., Carpentieri, B., Castiglione, A., Castiglione, A., and Palmieri, F. (2013, January 3\u20135). Text compression and encryption through smart devices for mobile communication. 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Control"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mamais, S.S., and Theodorakopoulos, G. (2017). Private and secure distribution of targeted advertisements to mobile phones. Future Internet, 9.","DOI":"10.3390\/fi9020016"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12","DOI":"10.1002\/bult.1720320206","article-title":"Sponsored search: A brief history","volume":"32","author":"Fain","year":"2006","journal-title":"Bull. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Narayanan, A., Thiagarajan, N., Lakhani, M., Hamburg, M., and Boneh, D. (2011). Location Privacy via Private Proximity Testing, Stanford University. NDSS."}],"container-title":["Future Internet"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/9\/4\/88\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T18:50:25Z","timestamp":1760208625000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/9\/4\/88"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,20]]},"references-count":19,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,12]]}},"alternative-id":["fi9040088"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/fi9040088","relation":{},"ISSN":["1999-5903"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"1999-5903"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2017,11,20]]}}}