The current vogue for social networking software is being matched by an increase in academic interest. My final year project surveys this area, seeking to demonstrate that such systems are workable and can be implemented without raising unresolvable privacy concerns.
Computer technology can transform the way we think about and act on trust.
To this end a small peer-to-peer application, entitled Hearsay, is developed as a proof of concept. The aim is to provide a guide to the creation of a number of interoperable implementations on the XMPP transport layer.
