1. WEBBOX
Daniel A. Smith and MaxVan Kleek
Tuesday, 23 April 13

2. AIMS
• Support modern data needs
• Multiple devices
• Multiple cloud services
Tuesday, 23 April 13

3. services
WHAT AND WHERE are our
digital artefacts?
what i create
what i do
RESOURCES I CONSULT
Tuesday, 23 April 13

4. 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

5. 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
Durability
Adoptability
Usability
Tuesday, 23 April 13

6. webbox
WEBBOX
• Versioned
• Transactional Integrity
• Encryption
• Graph Object Store
• JSON and RDF output
• Web Sharing
• Development Libraries
Tuesday, 23 April 13

7. 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

8. DEMO 1
• Data editor
Tuesday, 23 April 13

9. 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

10. DEMO 2
• Realtime chat
Tuesday, 23 April 13

11. 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

12. APPLICATION INTERFACE
WebSockets
App
WebBox
User
App connects to WebBox
Tuesday, 23 April 13

13. APPLICATION INTERFACE
User
WebSockets
User connects to WebBox
WebSockets
App
WebBox
Tuesday, 23 April 13

14. APPLICATION INTERFACE
App
WebBox
User
WebSockets
WebSockets
User grants permission to app - WebBox send it a token
Tuesday, 23 April 13

15. APPLICATION INTERFACE
App
WebBox
User
WebSockets/HTTP
WebSockets
App uses token to make changes using HTTP interface
Tuesday, 23 April 13

16. APPLICATION INTERFACE
App
WebBox
User
WebSockets/HTTP
WebSockets
User signals to App to start actions, e.g. a twitter crawl
Tuesday, 23 April 13

17. APPLICATION INTERFACE
App
WebBox
User
App sends the User a Push Notification (e.g. to iPhone)
Push Notification
Tuesday, 23 April 13

18. SAMPLE APP
Harvest tweets, assert into WebBox, handle versioning
Tuesday, 23 April 13

19. DEMO 3
• Twitter harvester +Tweetwatcher
Tuesday, 23 April 13

20. 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