Declustering the iTrust Search and Retrieval Network to Increase Trustworthiness

The iTrust search and retrieval network aims to provide trustworthy access to information on the Web by making it difficult to censor or filter information. The declustering algorithm, presented in this paper, randomizes the network in a manner that reduces the clustering, or cliquishness, of the network. This randomization also reduces the necessary amount of cooperation between nodes by ensuring that a connection to any node is short-lived and can be replaced with a connection to another node from a large pool of known peers. Thus, the declustering algorithm reduces the expectation of cooperation among peers, which represents the degree to which the nodes rely on, or act on, information provided by their peers. In general, the smaller the expectation of cooperation, the less susceptible the network is to malicious attacks. Simulation results demonstrate that the declustering algorithm succeeds in randomizing the neighbors of a node in the network and, thus, in reducing the likelihood of malicious attacks.