NeTS: Small: Incentivizing Internet-Scale Web Mining with Webcoin

NeTS：小型：利用 Webcoin 激励互联网规模的网络挖矿

• 批准号: 1810582
• 负责人: Aleksandar Kuzmanovic
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1810582&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NeTS; Small; Incentivizing; Internet; Scale

Four major search engines hold a unique position in enabling the use of the Internet, as they alone direct over 98% of Internet users to the content they seek, using proprietary indices. While the contribution of these companies is undeniable, their design is necessarily affected by their economic interests, which may or may not align with those of the users, raising concerns regarding their effect on the availability of information around the globe. One of the key barriers that hinders the proliferation of a larger number of search engines is the daunting, multi-billion-dollar-worth task of crawling and indexing the exabyte-scale Web space. Hence, this task is carried out by a small number of players capable of committing substantial resources to conduct 24/7 Web crawling and indexing. Despite prior efforts to democratize this space, i.e., promote the use of a distributed, objective and unbiased index instead, the use of such distributed systems has not become common. This is mostly due to inferior results associated with small Web indices used by such systems, induced by the lack of economic incentives for participation in distributed Web crawling, or because of the small-scale nature of the communities of users interested in collaborative Web indexing. This project seeks to show that generating incentives to create an up-to-date, organically-generated Web index, widely available to the "masses," is the way to democratize the search engine space. To generate sustainable incentives for user participation, this project utilizes Bitcoin's principles, yet forces miners to crawl and index the Web instead of conducting purposeless computations, as in Bitcoin. This project features Webcoin, a novel distributed digital currency which crowdsources networking tasks and rewards users for conducting Web crawling, scraping, and indexing, while providing the same security guarantees as Bitcoin. Webcoin's novelty, focus, and unique contribution lies in being the first to incentivize networking tasks, rather than computational tasks or personal content, to produce Google-scale Web indices within days. The key goal of this project is to design, implement, and evaluate Webcoin. This project has the potential to make a significant impact by removing the key barrier that hinders the proliferation of novel search engines, empowering the people to create such systems without significant initial costs. If successful, the proposed system will enable bias-free search, thus enhancing human liberties and promoting a free and open society. The PI plans to design and disseminate Webcoin as open-source software. Moreover, Webcoin's design principles could prove useful in domains beyond networking, in incentivizing user participation and in verifying user contributions, at scale. Education is an integral part of the project, and the PI plans to leverage existing institutional and special programs to recruit students from underrepresented groups into the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

四大搜索引擎在促进互联网使用方面拥有独特的地位，因为仅它们就使用专有索引将超过 98% 的互联网用户引导至他们所寻求的内容。虽然这些公司的贡献是不可否认的，但他们的设计必然受到其经济利益的影响，这些利益可能与用户的利益一致，也可能不一致，这引发了人们对其对全球信息可用性的影响的担忧。阻碍大量搜索引擎扩散的主要障碍之一是对 EB 级 Web 空间进行爬行和索引的艰巨且价值数十亿美元的任务。因此，这项任务是由少数能够投入大量资源进行 24/7 网络爬行和索引的参与者来执行的。尽管之前曾努力使这一领域民主化，即促进使用分布式、客观和公正的索引，但这种分布式系统的使用尚未变得普遍。这主要是由于与此类系统使用的小型 Web 索引相关的较差结果，这是由于缺乏参与分布式 Web 爬行的经济激励，或者是因为对协作 Web 索引感兴趣的用户社区的小规模性质。该项目旨在表明，激励措施创建一个最新的、有机生成的、广泛提供给“大众”的网络索引，是使搜索引擎空间民主化的方法。为了对用户参与产生可持续的激励，该项目利用了比特币的原理，但迫使矿工在网络上爬行和索引，而不是像比特币那样进行无目的的计算。该项目以 Webcoin 为特色，这是一种新颖的分布式数字货币，它众包网络任务并奖励用户进行网络爬行、抓取和索引，同时提供与比特币相同的安全保证。 Webcoin 的新颖性、重点和独特贡献在于它是第一个激励网络任务（而不是计算任务或个人内容）在几天内生成 Google 规模的 Web 索引的公司。该项目的主要目标是设计、实施和评估网络币。该项目有可能通过消除阻碍新型搜索引擎扩散的关键障碍来产生重大影响，使人们能够在不需要大量初始成本的情况下创建此类系统。如果成功，拟议的系统将实现无偏见的搜索，从而增强人类自由并促进自由开放的社会。 PI 计划将 Webcoin 作为开源软件进行设计和传播。此外，Webcoin 的设计原则可以在网络以外的领域、激励用户参与和大规模验证用户贡献方面发挥作用。教育是该项目的一个组成部分，PI 计划利用现有的机构和特殊项目来招募代表性不足群体的学生加入该项目。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势进行评估，认为值得支持以及更广泛的影响审查标准。