Patent ID: 7308496

Claim:
A peer computing system, comprising: a plurality of peer nodes; wherein each peer node in the plurality of peer nodes is configured to participate on a network with other peer nodes in the plurality of peer nodes in areas of interest and to exchange codats relevant to the areas of interest with the other peer nodes, wherein a codat is computer-representable content or data; wherein each peer node in at least a subset of the plurality of peer nodes is configured to: determine confidence in a selected peer node of the plurality of peer nodes as a provider of codats relevant to a particular area of interest, wherein to determine confidence in the selected peer node, the peer node is configured to determine confidence in each codat in a set of codats provided by the selected peer, and wherein, to determine confidence in each codat in the set of codats, the peer node is further configured to: determine relevance of the particular codat to the particular area of interest; and determine popularity of the particular codat among the plurality of peer nodes; determine risk associated with the selected peer node; and determine trust in the selected peer node as a provider of codats relevant to the particular area of interest from the confidence in the selected peer node and the risk associated with the selected peer node.