A method for updating a catalog of hardware device and software object identifiers by identifying unknown identifiers and categorizing each of the unknown identifiers. The method further provides the categorized identifiers to a community of users for review and receives comments from the community of users on the provided categorization. The method further determines if the categorized identifiers should be recategorized based upon the received comments. Another method performs a search for an entity associated with an unknown identifier, determines a likely entity associated with the unknown identifier, and verifies the correctness of such determined likely entity. Another method generates a catalog of computer system components, receives information regarding the identity of a computer system component from at least two different sources, and determines the identity of the computer system component based upon the reputation of the sources of the received information.