Konfidi: Trust Networks Using PGP and RDF

Trust networks have great potential for improving the effectiveness of email filtering and many other processes concerned with the validity of identity and content. To explore this potential, we propose the Konfidi system. Konfidi uses PGP connections to determine authenticity, and topical trust connections described in RDF to compute inferred trust values. Between yourself and some person X whom you do not know, Konfidi works to find a path of cryptographic PGP signatures to assure the identity of X, and estimates a trust rating by an algorithm that operates along the trust paths that connect you to X. The trust paths are formed from public personto-person trust ratings that are maintained by those individuals. We discuss the design of the network and system architecture and the current state of implementation.