Rama: An architecture for Internet information filtering

Abstract

This paper describes Rama, a first generation experimental information retrieval and filtering system that attempts to recover useful information from various Internet sources including USENIX news and anonymous FTP servers. The focus of the Rama system to date has been on building a distributed query and information retrieval system, which provides an interface to heterogeneous information services. A user of Rama sends one or more asynchronous queries to a Rama server using existing SMTP e-mail clients. The server periodically searches local and remote Internet services. Searches are prefiltered with the use of timestamps. Data objects which are newer than the timestamp are then searched via a query mechanism which relies on a combination of vector-distance, pattern matching operands, and boolean operators. Results are weighted according to how closely they match queries and are posted via e-mail to the user. Input to the e-mail client can be further filtered — one can use the MH mail system and sort input by weight. Results indicate that the current system is useful and extensible. So far we have assumed that existing e-mail systems will be used for input and output and have not attempted to construct special client interfaces. Efforts are underway to extend the system with WWW searching capabilities and construct a special WWW oriented user-interface.