Solid: an introduction
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Solid is a platform designed to give users control over their personal data, allowing them to decide where their data is stored and who can access it. Developed by Tim Berners-Lee, it aims to address the problems of data lock-in in social web applications by enabling a decentralized web where data can be shared across different apps while maintaining privacy. The document outlines the architectural concepts of Solid, its use cases, and the tools available for developers.
![Introduction
How it
works
Use cases
Examples
Conclusions
7 / 59
WHERE DO WE START? FROM TBL!
• Solid unleashes incredible opportunities for creativity, problem-solving
and commerce.
• It will empower individuals, developers and businesses with entirely
new ways to conceive, build and find innovative, trusted and beneficial
applications and services. [. . . ] multiple market possibilities, including
Solid apps and Solid data storage.
• Solid is guided by the principle of “personal empowerment through
data” which we believe is fundamental to the success of the next era of
the web. We believe data should empower each of us.
• With Solid, you will have far more personal agency over data - you
decide which apps can access it.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solid-introduction-191129163240/85/Solid-an-introduction-7-320.jpg)
Solid: an introduction
- 1. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 1 / 59 Solid: an introduction Vittorio Scarano vitsca@unisa.it Dipartimento di Informatica, Universit`a di Salerno ISISLab seminar November 30th, 2019
- 2. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 2 / 59 LESSON PLAN 1 Introduction 2 How it works Use cases 3 Examples 4 Conclusions
- 4. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 4 / 59 LESSON PLAN 1 Introduction 2 How it works Use cases 3 Examples 4 Conclusions
- 5. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 5 / 59 THE OBJECTIVES • The problem: user data management in social Web Applications • Present the architectural design of Solid • Provide some examples of use • Outline the possible directions of evolution and research
- 6. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 6 / 59 WHERE DO WE START? FROM TBL! • Tim Berners-Lee: just the creator of the WWW! • A letter 1 year ago: moving almost completely to found a new company Inrupt based on Solid • ”Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests.” • ”Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance - by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.” • Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use. It allows you, your family and colleagues, to link and share data with anyone. It allows people to look at the same data with different apps at the same time.
- 7. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 7 / 59 WHERE DO WE START? FROM TBL! • Solid unleashes incredible opportunities for creativity, problem-solving and commerce. • It will empower individuals, developers and businesses with entirely new ways to conceive, build and find innovative, trusted and beneficial applications and services. [. . . ] multiple market possibilities, including Solid apps and Solid data storage. • Solid is guided by the principle of “personal empowerment through data” which we believe is fundamental to the success of the next era of the web. We believe data should empower each of us. • With Solid, you will have far more personal agency over data - you decide which apps can access it.
- 8. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 8 / 59 SOCIAL WEB APPLICATIONS • ”Exactly what you are thinking of!” • Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Doodle, and many more. • Developers of social Web applications can: • build their own platform for storing and sharing data, • rely on existing social network platforms. • Each with their own APIs for storing, controlling and accessing data • Result? User-data lock-in syndrome: impossible to re-use data by similar applications • Lack of freedom for users, that (don’t forget!) do own their data • Limitations for developers • hard to develop applications on multiple platforms
- 10. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 10 / 59 THE SEGMENTATION OF DATA THROUGH APPS • Usually, data is segmented and partitioned through (non interoperable) mobile apps (provider) • As an example, a user would tackles work tasks, scheduling, health and lifestyle challenges with many different apps. • What would be needed is one fluid, useful and controllable experience that lets user streamline his daily personal and professional productivity, and make managing (for example) his health a priority. • With an app, based on Solid, this is possible and keeps the data in control of the user
- 11. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 11 / 59 THE SOLID APP
- 12. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 12 / 59 THE SOLID PERSONAL ONLINE DATASTORE
- 14. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 14 / 59 LESSON PLAN 1 Introduction 2 How it works Use cases 3 Examples 4 Conclusions
- 15. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 15 / 59 HOW IT WORKS - 1 • User decides where to store personal data: in the Personal Online Datastore (POD) • Solid POD can be in user’s house or workplace, or with an online Solid POD provider • Permissions are given to people and apps to read or write to parts of your Solid POD. • With a new app, no need to fill out your details ever again: they are read from your POD with your permission. • Re-usable things saved through one app are available in another • Privacy protection and advantages for developers
- 16. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 16 / 59 HOW IT WORKS - 2 • Store anything in your own Solid POD: secure USB sticks for the Web • When access is given to parts of your POD, users can react to your photos and share their memories with you. • You decide which things apps and people can see. • Solid POD as your own private website, except that your data interoperates with all your apps, which means you have your own personal API to go along with it. • Different PODs can be used interoperably: from providers, and private’s
- 17. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 17 / 59 HOW IT WORKS - 3 • In order to prove ownership of your data, you need a way to identify yourself. • Rather than relying on several third party, you can use your Solid POD to say who you are. • No more “Log in with X” or “Log in with Y” on the Web • Just “Log in with your own Solid POD”.
- 18. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 18 / 59 WHAT IS SOLID • Solid (Social Linked Data) is based on RDF and Semantic Web technologies: data independence and simple yet powerful data management mechanisms. • Each user stores their data in a personal online datastore (pod), Web-accessible storage services, either on personal servers or on public servers by pod providers (e.g., Dropbox). • Solid applications are implemented as client-side Web or mobile applications that read and write data directly from the pods.
- 19. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 19 / 59 ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS - 1 Storing data every single piece of data they produce Credits: SEMIC 2019 presentation, by Verbourgh, Mostaert
- 20. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 20 / 59 ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS - 2 They can grant apps and people access to very specific parts of their data Credits: SEMIC 2019 presentation, by Verbourgh, Mostaert
- 21. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 21 / 59 ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS - 3 Separating app and storage competition drives permissionless innovation Credits: SEMIC 2019 presentation, by Verbourgh, Mostaert
- 22. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 22 / 59 ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS - 4 The current approach to APIs doesn’t play well with decentralization Credits: SEMIC 2019 presentation, by Verbourgh, Mostaert
- 23. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 23 / 59 ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS - 5 Apps and interfaces can evolve independently Credits: SEMIC 2019 presentation, by Verbourgh, Mostaert
- 24. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 24 / 59 THE SOLID PLATFORM - 1 • The Solid platform relies as much as possible on existing W3C standards • In Solid, data is managed in a RESTful way, as defined by the Linked Data Platform (LDP)
- 25. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 25 / 59 THE SOLID PLATFORM - 2 • Data is stored in documents identified by a Uniform Resource Identifer (URI). • Distinction between structured data by Resource Description Framework (RDF), and unstructured data can be of any type (e.g., videos, images, Web pages, etc.). • Useful as structured data can be parsed and serialized (using Turtle, JSON-LD (JSON with a ”context”), or RDFa (HTML attributes). • Besides LDP support (GET/POST/. . . ), Solid servers may offer optional SPARQL support.
- 26. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 26 / 59 REQUIRED AND OPTIONALS
- 27. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 27 / 59 DECENTRALIZED IDENTITY SYSTEM • Solid uses WebID to implement a global identity management architecture based on the concept of decentralized identity providers • Other existing identity protocols such as OAuth and OpenID Connect offer a certain degree of decentralization, they do not fit into the RDF based profile data • The general idea behindWebID is that agents (e.g., a person, an organization, a group, etc.) create their own identities by linking a unique identifier in the form of an HTTP(S) URI . . . • . . . to a profile document, a familiar Web page in RDF. • The profile document contains all the necessary information to create a Web of trust
- 28. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 28 / 59 THE READ/WRITE PROTOCOL IN LDP • LDP Resources (LDPRs) are HTTP resources, either RDF or not. • Resources represent the minimum data granularity • LDP Containers (LDPCs) are collections of LDPRs • Added ”globbing”: GET https://example.org/data/* • Added PUT to create new resources.
- 29. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 29 / 59 SOME APPLICATIONS
- 30. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 30 / 59 OTHER RECENT APPS (2019!) • From https://solidproject.org/use-solid/apps • Solid Calendar • Notepod • Poddit (bookmarking) • Pixelid (managing images) • Form Integration • Solid File Manager • OpenLink Structured Data Editor
- 32. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 32 / 59 LESSON PLAN 1 Introduction 2 How it works Use cases 3 Examples 4 Conclusions
- 33. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 33 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER • Different servers available • Currently on Node Solid Server implementations
- 34. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 34 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 1
- 35. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 35 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 2
- 36. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 36 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 3
- 37. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 37 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER -4
- 38. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 38 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 5
- 39. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 39 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 6
- 40. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 40 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 7
- 41. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 41 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 8
- 42. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 42 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 9
- 43. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 43 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 10
- 44. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 44 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 11
- 45. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 45 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 12
- 46. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 46 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 13
- 47. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 47 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 14
- 48. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 48 / 59 REGISTRATION ON A SERVER - 15
- 50. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 50 / 59 LESSON PLAN 1 Introduction 2 How it works Use cases 3 Examples 4 Conclusions
- 51. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 51 / 59 CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROJECT • Thousands of developers across 26 countries • More than experimental 50,000 Solid personal online data stores (PODs). • Collaboration with bigger partners: UK’s National Health Service, Indian telecoms company • Multimillion-dollar fundraising by the end of March • Client-side: libraries in JavaScript • Solid React SDK, Solid auth client, Solid UI, Mashlib, LDflex for Solid • Reference implementations of server: Node Solid Server
- 52. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 52 / 59 PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS (AND METAPHORS!) • All the eggs in one basket
- 53. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 53 / 59 PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS (AND METAPHORS!) • Racing a bobsleigh
- 54. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 54 / 59 PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS (AND METAPHORS!) • Chicken and egg
- 55. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 55 / 59 PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS (AND METAPHORS!) • Laws and regulations, internationally heterogeneous
- 56. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 56 / 59 PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS (AND METAPHORS!) • ”It will never work!”
- 58. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 58 / 59 READING MATERIAL AND CREDITS • Inrupt website: www.inrupt.com • Solid Project website: www.solidproject.org • Letter of motivations of Tim Berners-Lee: https://inrupt.com/blog/one-small-step-for-the-web • Financial Times: ”Boldness in Business person of the year: Sir Tim Berners-Lee” https://www.ft.com/content/9d3205a8-15af-11e9-a168-d45595ad076d • A presentation at SEMIC 2019 by Ruben Verborgh and Katrien Mostaert https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/inline-files/08%20SEMIC2019_Ruben_ Verborgh%20and%20Katrien_Mostaert.pdf • Paper on Semantic Scholar https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Solid-% 3A-A-Platform-for-Decentralized-Social-Based-Sambra-Mansour/ 5ac93548fd0628f7ff8ff65b5878d04c79c513c4
- 59. Introduction How it works Use cases Examples Conclusions 59 / 59 QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? ANYTHING?