TY - JOUR
T1 - ESPRESSO: A Framework to Empower Search on the Decentralized Web
AU - Ragab, Mohamed
AU - Savateev, Yury
AU - Oliver, Helen
AU - Tiropanis, Thanassis
AU - Poulovassilis, Alexandra
AU - Chapman, Adriane
AU - Roussos, George
N1 - © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
PY - 2024/12/1
Y1 - 2024/12/1
N2 - The increasing centralization of the Web raises serious concerns regarding privacy, security, and user autonomy. In response, there has been a renewed interest in the development of secure personal information management systems and a movement towards decentralization. Decentralized personal online data stores (pods) represent a revolutionary example within this movement, built on the W3C’s existing guidelines – an approach exemplified by initiatives such as Solid (https://solidproject.org). In the Solid paradigm, individuals store their personal data in pods and have absolute discretion when choosing to grant access to different users and applications. A barrier to the adoption of the pod approach is the predominant reliance on centralized indexes for search functionality in current Web and Web-based systems. This paper introduces the ESPRESSO framework, which is designed to facilitate this new paradigm of large-scale searches within personal data stores while respecting the individual pod owners’ data access governance. The current ESPRESSO prototype integrates access control within pod indexes to enhance distributed keyword-based search. ESPRESSO’s unique contribution not only enhances search capabilities on the decentralized Web but also paves the way for future explorations in decentralized search technologies.
AB - The increasing centralization of the Web raises serious concerns regarding privacy, security, and user autonomy. In response, there has been a renewed interest in the development of secure personal information management systems and a movement towards decentralization. Decentralized personal online data stores (pods) represent a revolutionary example within this movement, built on the W3C’s existing guidelines – an approach exemplified by initiatives such as Solid (https://solidproject.org). In the Solid paradigm, individuals store their personal data in pods and have absolute discretion when choosing to grant access to different users and applications. A barrier to the adoption of the pod approach is the predominant reliance on centralized indexes for search functionality in current Web and Web-based systems. This paper introduces the ESPRESSO framework, which is designed to facilitate this new paradigm of large-scale searches within personal data stores while respecting the individual pod owners’ data access governance. The current ESPRESSO prototype integrates access control within pod indexes to enhance distributed keyword-based search. ESPRESSO’s unique contribution not only enhances search capabilities on the decentralized Web but also paves the way for future explorations in decentralized search technologies.
KW - Solid framework
KW - Linked data
KW - Access control
KW - Decentralized web
KW - SPARQL
KW - Distributed querying
KW - Personal online data stores
KW - RDF
KW - Web search
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85207519616&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s41019-024-00263-w
DO - 10.1007/s41019-024-00263-w
M3 - Article
SN - 2364-1185
VL - 9
SP - 431
EP - 448
JO - Data Science and Engineering
JF - Data Science and Engineering
IS - 4
ER -