Automatic publishing and retrieval in a networked community of computers based on a Small World Adaptive Network (SWAN) type of network. Each computer installs a program which automatically scans data items in its computer's environment to find unique IDs in accordance with UID templates. For each data item found containing a UID, a data record is created comprising the UID associated with the network address of the data item. If permitted by a ruleset, that data record is published to the network by creating a node having the (hashed) UID as its identity or by adding the network address of that data item to common ID lists of existing nodes having that same UID identity. A search request in respect of a UID will find a node and obtain all the network addresses in its list, enabling the requester to send retrieval requests for each corresponding data item.