Methods, systems, and computer program products for gathering information and statistics from a community of nodes in a network

A system for gathering information and statistics from a community of agent nodes in a network, comprising:

• a computer processing device;
• and
• a process request application executing on the computer processing device, the process request application implementing a method, comprising:
• generating a process request, including:
• a rule for discovering each of the agent nodes in the community;
• a rule for accessing local information stored on each of the agent nodes, the local information representing at least activities conducted by end users at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• a set of rules operable for:
• classifying data comprising the local information at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• developing a cumulative profile resulting from the classifying, the cumulative profile including generic information that is descriptive of collective activities conducted by the end users the cumulative profile devoid of information that personally identifies any of the end users;
• transmitting the process request to a first agent node in the community;
• and
• preventing extraction of specified information at any location in a transmission path followed by the process request among the agent nodes, the preventing including:
• pre-populating the process request with noisy data prior to transmission;
• and
• removing the noisy data from the process request when the cumulative profile is returned from the last agent node in the community.

A computer program product comprising a storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by a computer implement a service for gathering information and statistics from a community of agent nodes in a network, the computer program product implementing a method, the method comprising:

• generating a process request, including:
• a rule for discovering each of the agent nodes in the community;
• a rule for accessing local information stored on each of the agent nodes, the local information representing at least activities conducted by end users at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• a set of rules operable for:
• classifying data comprising the local information at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• developing a cumulative profile resulting from the classifying, the cumulative profile including generic information that is descriptive of collective activities conducted by the end users;
• the cumulative profile devoid of information that personally identifies any of the end users;
• transmitting the process request to a first agent node in the community;
• and
• preventing extraction of specified information at any location in a transmission path followed by the process request among the agent nodes, the preventing including:
• pre-populating the process request with noisy data prior to transmission;
• and
• removing the noisy data from the process request when the cumulative profile is returned from the last agent node in the community.

A service for gathering information and statistics from a community of agent nodes in a network, comprising:

• generating a process request, including:
• a rule for discovering each of the agent nodes in the community;
• a rule for accessing local information stored on each of the agent nodes, the local information representing at least activities conducted by end users at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• a set of rules operable for:
• classifying data comprising the local information at each of the agent nodes;
• and
• developing a cumulative profile resulting from the classifying, the cumulative profile including generic information that is descriptive of collective activities conducted by the end users;
• the cumulative profile devoid of information that personally identifies any of the end users;
• and
• transmitting the process request to a first agent node in the community;
• and preventing extraction of specified information at any location in a transmission path followed by the process request among the agent nodes, the preventing including:
• pre-populating the process request with noisy data prior to transmission;
• and
• removing the noisy data from the process request when the cumulative profile is returned from the last agent node in the community.