Web Page Entanglement

jason writes "tangle is a system for what we call "web page entanglement". tangle creates links between pages automatically based on how users move from one page to another. tangle proxies connect together in a peer-to-peer network for scalability: as users surf the entangled web, they are passed from proxy to proxy. Each proxy serves as an expert for a particular subset of web pages. For example, you can take a look at the entangled version of the GNU homepage as seen through a tangle proxy. tangle alpha2, the first public version, has just been released. See http://tangle.sourceforge.net for more information, or read on..."

jason continues:

"By viewing the web through a tangle proxy, you can see the connections and associations left by those who surfed the web before you. By surfing the web using tangle, you also leave behind connections and associations for others who will surf in the future.

When you exit one page and enter another (by clicking a link or performing a search), a two-way link is created between the pages. As users surf through a particular page over time, tangle keeps track of popular ways to get to the page and popular places to go next. These entry and exit links are displayed at the top of each page, sorted by popularity.

Clicking on one of these entry/exit links tells tangle that you think the link is relevant and useful (like a vote for the link) and increases the link's popularity. In other words, if a user thinks of something relevant while reading a page and performs a search for it from that page, tangle gauges how others react to that association over time.

tangle is similar in some ways to the closed-loop hypertext system Everything2, though tangle works for the web at large.

We have several tangle proxies up and running. The tangle proxy software is also available for download.

A note for the paranoid:
Though tangle keeps track of web usage patterns, the focus is not on tracking the habits of individual users, but on tracking the trends of an entire community of users. tangle is GPL'd open source [source here], so you can see for yourself: clicking a link through a tangle proxy simply bumps up the links popularity---user IP addresses are completely ignored."

Comments

Too bad

[MxTxL]

It sounds cool, but might prove to be useless... the phenomenon will happen that popular sites will be the ones getting the most hits and just perpetuating that way just because they are popular. More useful but less popular sites will be overlooked because they haven't been looked at much.

Re:Slippery Slope?

[Iguanaphobic]

As with competition in business, you can vote it down by simply going somewhere else.

Re:Trusting what you read.

[Jester99]

Excluding mutually authenticated ssl sessions, when have you ever trusted anything online?

There's 15 routers between you and any web page you're visiting. That page is transmitted in plaintext the whole way. A man-in-the-middle attack could easily filter/scrub/change/subvert any page you're viewing.

I know paranoia's popular on slashdot about how "The Man" is going to censor your viewing habits, but if you think that this is some sort of new problem created by proxies... just look at how TCP/IP operates. And smack yourself for not thinking that it already could happen. This is not a new concept or a new danger.

Take-away message: if you need to ensure your data's passing along the net securely... use a secure transport mechanism.

Re:isn't this done already?

[Mnemia]

You don't, and you don't really have a right to. People can view your content through whatever proxy or filter they want if you put it online at a publically accessible URL. You as a content producer don't get to specify exact presentation.

Re:Slippery Slope?

[trentfoley]

In order to know if the page is worthwhile, you must look at it. And, then you can choose to go somewhere else. But, by looking at the worthless page, you have voted for it. There needs to be a way to indicate dissatisfaction with the choice. Perhaps the proxies could detect the user hitting the back button and use this for negative feedback. However, I think that might lead to too many false negatives. It's never easy, is it?

If I'm way off, thats because I'm too damned lazy to read the article.