As ubiquitous networked devices continue to play an increased role in the daily lives of most people, there is a growing desire to share ever more information among friends and acquaintances. Traditional centralized search engines, such as those of Google, Yahoo! and Bing, allow simple and efficient searching for publicly available information; however, there is no similar service or method that enables people to share personal information directly and easily in a distributed and decentralized manner. Furthermore, the dissemination of information in centralized networks can be subverted or restricted by governments or corporations if the information is deemed undesirable.

To address this need, we present a trustworthy decentralized publication, search and retrieval system, named iTrust. The iTrust network may be accessed using a variety of devices from traditional computer desktops with wired networking to mobile ad-hoc wireless devices, such as mobile phones and tablets. In this dissertation, we describe the functionality and architecture of the iTrust system including: the generation and distribution of metadata that describes information, the distribution and relaying of queries, the information retrieval process and the probabilistic method of distributing messages. We analyze the performance of the iTrust network over heterogeneous networks, including HTTP, SMS and Wi-Fi Direct. Where relevant, we discuss the novel methods developed to address specific network challenges such as mobile ad-hoc message routing, peer-to-peer network management, message size constraints, etc. Finally, we show how our research contributes both to the fields of computer networking and distributed systems, and also censorship-free sharing of information.