Firefox Extension for Applied Social Networking

wanderingstan writes "Outfoxed is my masters thesis project about trust. (Nutshell overview) The extension uses a social network for personalized searching, phishing/spyware protection, file/process validation and more. It's related to del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and those Kevin Bacon things, but goes a lot further. Mathematically, it's based on the network behavior of small world networks (pdf). Built with Javascript, Python, SQL, and XSLT. 366 testers so far, but we need the network to grow!"

Comments

did he say...

[bad_outlook]

he wanted the network to *grow* or get slashdotted to death?

bo

Re:I wish there was a Firefox extension for...

[octalman]

... filtering stupid posts.

Re:Using social networks for personalization

[capt.Hij]

Another example is the state of Utah! Salt Lake City is the smallest city to have its own SEC office, and the state suffers from a high rate for people getting ripped off by people they know. This has been attributed by the close network of people within the LDS Church. Somebody who is intent on ripping someone off can join the church and instantly gain a large web of trust.

kevin bacon things

[xtermin8]

I tried googling "kevin bacon things" and "extensions" the results I got were really disturbing. Please, we don't need any more of these on the net!

more links please

[joey_knisch]

I think he needed more random links.

sql go boom

[farker haiku]

Every file and process should have a chain of trust leading back to the user. Any file or process without such a chain is being taken on faith, and the user should be warned accordingly.
For example, every process run by a computer should have a chain that looks something like this:

wuauclt.exe [executed by] Windows Update [installed by] Windows OS [installed by] User [trusted by] Root User
matlabserver.exe [executed by] MatLab Application [installed by] User [trusted by] Root User
And similarly, every file should also have a chain:

desktopicon.ico [created by] FireFox Application [installed by] User [trusted by] Root User
mydocument.doc [created by] MS Word Application [installed by] Root User
Ideally, management of trust should be done at the lowest levels of computation: in the operating system or even in the microprocessor itself. This limits the ability of malicious software from disrupting the chain of trust back to the user. Outfoxed, because it is just an extension, has many vulnerabilities. Primary is the vulnerability of the locally stored trust database.

The next step would be to have trust storage implemented as a continuously running process that could be queried by other applications. [Note 22/03: The new version does this, using HTTP for queries.] So the browser, email client, and word processor could all draw trust information from the same source.

The best solution would be to have this process integrated into the operating system itself, so that the OS could also take advantage of the trust information by only running trusted applications. Trust managed at this level, combined with a good security methodology, would give us the ultimate trustworthy environment.

Re:Using social networks for personalization

[joepeg]

On the one hand, you trust your friends, so things your friends clicked on might be interesting for you to know about.

Obviously, you've never had a friend relentlessly forward you email chain letters insisting "I know you hate these ... but this one is funny/great/interesting/etc..."