WEBBOXDaniel A. Smith and Max Van Kleek

Tuesday, 23 April 13

AIMS

• Support modern data needs

• Multiple devices

• Multiple cloud services

Tuesday, 23 April 13

services

WHAT AND WHERE are our digital artefacts?

what i create

what i do

RESOURCES I CONSULT

Tuesday, 23 April 13

AIMS

• Support modern data needs

• Multiple devices

• Multiple cloud services

• Security of personal data

• Trustable

• Sharing over the web

• Interoperable with other systems

• Easy for developers

• Support modern standards

• Scalable

• Open source

Tuesday, 23 April 13

AIMS

• Support modern data needs

• Multiple devices

• Multiple cloud services

• Security of personal data

• Trustable

• Sharing over the web

• Interoperable with other systems

• Easy for developers

• Support modern standards

• Scalable

• Open source

Versatility

Security

DurabilityAdoptability

Usability

Tuesday, 23 April 13

webbox

WEBBOX• Versioned

• Transactional Integrity

• Encryption

• Graph Object Store

• JSON and RDF output

• Web Sharing

• Development Libraries

Tuesday, 23 April 13

ARCHITECTURE

• PostgreSQL database

• Object store (triples)

• Versions

• Transactions with table locking

• Authentication by DB

• HTTP interface to JSON

• WebSockets interface: realtime diff updates

• Encryption on the wire (TLS/SSL)

• Encryption in the DB

Tuesday, 23 April 13

DEMO 1

• Data editor

Tuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATIONS

• HTML5 applications hosted by a WebBox

• User authenticates with WebBox directly in-browser

• Browser receives a session token

• Changes are made directly by the app

• Developers use “webbox.js” to simplify authentication and access to webbox

Tuesday, 23 April 13

DEMO 2

• Realtime chat

Tuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE• External (non-browser) applications that use HTTP/

WebSockets interface

• Token based authentication

• User grants permission to an app via webbox, using a token

• The app then has permissions on a box

• User can signal to an app through the webbox WebSocket

• Developers user “pyWebbox” library for python

Tuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

WebSockets

App

WebBox

User

App connects to WebBoxTuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

User

WebSockets

User connects to WebBox

WebSockets

App

WebBox

Tuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

App

WebBox

User

WebSockets

WebSockets

User grants permission to app - WebBox send it a tokenTuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

App

WebBox

User

WebSockets/HTTP

WebSockets

App uses token to make changes using HTTP interfaceTuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

App

WebBox

User

WebSockets/HTTP

WebSockets

User signals to App to start actions, e.g. a twitter crawlTuesday, 23 April 13

APPLICATION INTERFACE

App

WebBox

User

App sends the User a Push Notification (e.g. to iPhone)

Push Notification

Tuesday, 23 April 13

SAMPLE APP

Harvest tweets, assert into WebBox, handle versioningTuesday, 23 April 13

DEMO 3

• Twitter harvester + Tweetwatcher

Tuesday, 23 April 13

WEBBOX-WEBBOX COMMUNICATION

• Similar interface to applications - persistent two-way comms using WebSockets or one-off HTTP calls

• Users can give permissions to other WebBoxes/users

• Rich platform for real-time collaboration

• Challenges:

• ID providers

• Shared versioning across webboxes

• Global naming for shared objects

• Network traversal/mobile IP

Work in Progress

Tuesday, 23 April 13