  By harvesting friendship networks from e-mail contacts or instant message
"buddy lists" Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications can improve performance in low
trust environments such as the Internet. However, natural social networks are
not always suitable, reliable or available. We propose an algorithm (SLACER)
that allows peer nodes to create and manage their own friendship networks.
  We evaluate performance using a canonical test application, requiring
cooperation between peers for socially optimal outcomes. The Artificial Social
Networks (ASN) produced are connected, cooperative and robust - possessing many
of the disable properties of human friendship networks such as trust between
friends (directly linked peers) and short paths linking everyone via a chain of
friends.
  In addition to new application possibilities, SLACER could supply ASN to P2P
applications that currently depend on human social networks thus transforming
them into fully autonomous, self-managing systems.
