[Gzz-commits] manuscripts/storm article.rst short-paper.rst

[Benja Fallenstein]

CVSROOT:        /cvsroot/gzz
Module name:    manuscripts
Changes by:     Benja Fallenstein <address@hidden>      03/05/29 18:58:31

Modified files:
        storm          : article.rst short-paper.rst 

Log message:
        more, try to shorten

CVSWeb URLs:
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gzz/manuscripts/storm/article.rst.diff?tr1=1.228&tr2=1.229&r1=text&r2=text
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gzz/manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst.diff?tr1=1.10&tr2=1.11&r1=text&r2=text

Patches:
Index: manuscripts/storm/article.rst
diff -u manuscripts/storm/article.rst:1.228 manuscripts/storm/article.rst:1.229
--- manuscripts/storm/article.rst:1.228 Tue May 20 06:24:01 2003
+++ manuscripts/storm/article.rst       Thu May 29 18:58:31 2003
@@ -1132,6 +1132,7 @@
 Acknowledgements
 ================
 
+This work was funded by the Agora Center InBCT project.
 We would like to thank Erno Kuusela, Sarah Stehlig,
 Harri Oinas-Kukkonen and Jukka Honkela for 
 comments and discussions.
Index: manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst
diff -u manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst:1.10 
manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst:1.11
--- manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst:1.10      Thu May 29 16:11:24 2003
+++ manuscripts/storm/short-paper.rst   Thu May 29 18:58:31 2003
@@ -8,9 +8,10 @@
 Linking personal documents like we link Web pages is inconvenient
 enough that users rarely ever do it. A major reason is that
 links break when documents are moved around or sent by mail.
-We argue that while non-breaking links would be a convenience 
-on the Web, they are a necessity for making Web-like hyperlinks
-useful on the local desktop.
+
+.. We argue that while non-breaking links would be a convenience 
+   on the Web, they are a necessity for making Web-like hyperlinks
+   useful on the local desktop.
 
 We propose Storm, a storage system identifying documents by
 cryptographic hashes and signatures, independently of their
@@ -28,12 +29,12 @@
 
 .. raw:: latex
 
-   \category{H.5.4}{Information Interfaces and 
Presentation}{Hy\-per\-text/Hy\-permedia}[architectures]
+   %\category{H.5.4}{Information Interfaces and 
Presentation}{Hy\-per\-text/Hy\-permedia}[architectures]
    \category{H.3.4}{Information Storage and Re\-trie\-val}{Systems and 
Software}[distributed systems, information networks]
 
    \terms{Design, Reliability, Performance}
 
-   \keywords{versioned hypermedia, dangling links, 
+   \keywords{dangling links, 
    peer-to-peer, location-independent identifiers}
 
 
@@ -45,10 +46,11 @@
 
 Bush's Memex [XXX] was to be a hypermedia device
 for personal use, not for hypermedia publication.
+
 Yet, while many Web pages are densely interlinked today,
 desktop documents still have rarely any hypermedia
 functionality. Even though documents written with
-OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Word can nowadays be
+Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org can nowadays be
 linked just like HTML files, users almost never
 do so. 
 
@@ -63,9 +65,7 @@
 .. links needed that don't break when documents are moved:
 
 We believe that a major burden to hypermedia 
-on the desktop is that links break when documents
-are published, moved between folders, or sent by email.
-
+on the desktop is breaking links. 
 When sending a couple of hyperlinked notes per
 mail, the receiver would have to assemble them
 into the sender's directory structure. A document
@@ -86,36 +86,31 @@
 harddisk, attached to another email, or on the
 public Internet.
 
-.. structure of this paper:
+.. contribution of this paper:
+
+This document describes Storm, a library for
+storing and retrieving data using 
+location-independent Uniform Resource Names [XXX].
 
 
 Related work
 ============
 
-Systems like Lotus Notes [XXX], a popular database sharing 
-and collaboration tool, use location-independent, 
-global identifiers to refer to documents.
-
 .. Freenet's cryptographical identifiers:
 
-Freenet [freenet-andalso-freenet-ieee]_, a peer-to-peer
-anonymous publication system, uses cryptographic
-functions to generate location-independent identifiers.
-
-In Freenet, identifiers for specific versions of documents are
-generated by the use of a *collision-free cryptographic 
-hash function* [XXX]. A hash function maps an arbitrary-length
-input to a short, fixed-length output, e.g. 20 bytes.
-
-Hash functions are collision-free if it is 
-mathematically extremely unlikely that two documents
-will ever be mapped to the same hash, making them
-ideal to identify documents on the Web.
-
-Documents are identified by a public key.
-Versions of the documents are then 
-digitally signed [XXX]_ using the corresponding 
-private key.
+Location-independent identifiers aren't a new idea.
+In Freenet [freenet-ieee]_, an anonymous peer-to-peer
+publication system, *cryptographic hashes* [XXX]
+are used to identify versions of documents. Hashes
+are short, e.g. 20 bytes, yet it is extremely unlikely
+that two different documents will ever have the same hash,
+making them ideal identifiers on the Web.
+
+Hashes allow reference to a single version of a
+document. Documents are refered to by public keys [XXX].
+The private key corresponding to a document's public key
+can update the document by digitally signing a new version
+of it.
 
 However, finding a document on Freenet can be
 quite slow, taking many seconds. This is not
@@ -140,7 +135,7 @@
 However, recent developments in peer-to-peer systems have
 rendered this assumption obsolete. Distributed hashtables
 (DHTs) and other structured overlay networks
-[stoica01chord-andalso-ratnasamy01can-andalso-zhao01tapestry-andalso-rowston01pastry-andalso-maymounkov02kademlia-andalso-malkhi02viceroy-andalso-AspnesS2003-andalso-bonsma02swan]_
 
+[AspnesS2003-andalso-bonsma02swan-andalso-malkhi02viceroy-andalso-maymounkov02kademlia-andalso-ratnasamy01can-andalso-rowston01pastry-andalso-stoica01chord-andalso-zhao01tapestry]_
 
 allow location-independent identifiers
 to be resolved on a global scale.
 
@@ -163,18 +158,55 @@
 
 .. a general storage system, using Freenet-like identifiers:
 
+We are developing a library storing
+documents on the desktop and publishing and retrieving
+documents from the network.
+Our system, Storm (for STORage Modules),
+uses Freenet-like cryptographic identifiers.
+
 .. part of the web -- URN scheme (so far experimental, 
    targetting registration):
 
+We are using an experimental URN (Uniform Resource Name,
+[XXX]) namespace and are preparing the registration
+of an informal namespace with IANA. This allows our
+system's identifiers to be used in Web hyperlinks.
+
 .. accessible through Java library or http gateway:
 
+Browsers and applications can access Storm either
+by using the Java library directly or through an
+HTTP gateway, which, given a Storm URN, finds and
+returns the associated file. Documents can be
+uploaded into Storm using HTTP PUT operations
+on the gateway.
+
+.. Applications we are integrated with:
+
+Using the gateway, we have made the Konqueror
+web browser as well as Netscape Navigator 4
+understand Storm URNs. Using our extension, any
+KDE application can load from and save to
+Storm URNs. KDE automatically uploads changed
+documents into Storm when the user hits "Save."
+
+.. OpenOffice can load from http gateway
+   (needs more complete WebDAV impl to save):
+
+The Emacs text editor doesn't understand Storm
+URNs yet, but can load and save documents using
+Storm through the HTTP gateway. OpenOffice.org
+can load documents through the HTTP gateway,
+but cannot save to it, because the gateway
+does not support WebDAV.
+
 .. web interface for searching etc.
 
-- Konqueror and Netscape 4 understand Storm URNs
-- KDE programs can load from and save to Storm URNs
-- emacs can load from and save to http gateway
-- OpenOffice can load from http gateway
-  (needs more complete WebDAV impl to save)
+The HTTP gateway also provides a Web interface
+to Storm, giving the user a list of all documents
+stored on their local hard disk, and allows users
+to conduct searches over the titles of all documents
+published on the network.
 
 
 Conclusions
@@ -186,6 +218,7 @@
 Acknowledgements
 ================
 
+This work was funded by the Agora Center InBCT project.
 We would like to thank Erno Kuusela, Sarah Stehlig,
 Harri Oinas-Kukkonen and Jukka Honkela for 
 comments and discussions.