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From Cloudtripper

Contents 1 Welcome 2 News 3 Approach 4 The Demo 5 Demo Code 6 How to run the demo yourself 6.1 Installation instructions 6.2 Contact 7 Background 8 Related Efforts 9 Contributors 10 Misc

Welcome

Welcome to the home of the Cloudtripper Project. Cloudtripper is an open community sponsored by Parity and devoted to portability of personal social data: the ability for individuals to "take their data with them" as they move across different websites and applications without having it locked into any particular silo.

• List: http://groups.google.com/group/cloudtripper --join us!

News

• ...created this section, cuz it isn't everyday you get quoted in the NY Times!

Approach

'In a nutshell': We use the Eclipse Higgins project's pluggable (java) Identity Attribute Service (IdAS) as the organizing framework and abstract data model. We then create IdAS Context Providers (plug-ins) for existing social networks (e.g. Facebook, etc.) each is adapted to the normalized Higgins data model. These Context Providers will rely on the Community Dictionary Service to map each silo's schema into a common schema. see also identityschemas.org.

Warning: this last step of normalizing the schemas hasn't yet gotten implemented in the demo described below. But that's the plan.

The Demo

This group got kicked off preparing for the Data Sharing Summit in early September. Here's a diagram that explains the demo we did at the summit:

Demo Code

We created a simple java application that does the following:

1. Initializes the IdAS framework that is pre-configured with two Context Providers: a Facebook Context Provider and an OpenID simple registration Context Provider
2. Authenticates to and "opens" the Facebook Context
3. Finds the Digital Subject that corresponds to user Markus Sabadello
4. Reads some of Markus's attributes. (On the fly, the Facebook CP maps the attributes from the Facebook schema into a neutral schema using the Community Dictionary Service (CDS))
5. Repeats steps 2, 3 and 4 above for the OpenId Context

How to run the demo yourself

The demo is available as a Java WebStart application at the following URL:

http://www.cloudtripper.org/~CloudTripperDSSDemo/CloudTripperDSSDemo/dist/CloudTripperDSSDemo.jnlp

The source code of the demo is available on the Cloudtripper SVN.

The Cloudtripper demo uses components from Higgins.

Installation instructions

These instructions assume you are running the Eclipse IDE and the Subclipse plugin.

1. From Cloudtripper SVN: Export the following projects into your workspace:
   • CloudTripperDSSDemo
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.cp.f8
2. From Higgins CVS: Export the following projects into your workspace:
   • org.eclipse.higgins.configuration.api
   • org.eclipse.higgins.configuration.common
   • org.eclipse.higgins.configuration.xml
   • org.eclipse.higgins.configuration.xrds
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.api
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.common
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.cp.openid
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.registry
   • org.eclipse.higgins.idas.spi
   • org.eclipse.higgins.util.idas.cp
   • org.eclipse.higgins.util.jscript
3. Download ALL dependencies of the respective Higgins components as listed on the Higgins components Wiki page: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Components. Put the dependencies into the lib/ folders of their respective components.
4. Copy all dependencies into the lib/ folder of the CloudTripperDSSDemo project.
5. Build the required Higgins components by running the "jar" ANT build target of all the above mentioned Higgins components, as well as of the org.eclipse.higgins.idas.cp.f8 Cloudtripper component.
6. Place all built .jar files plus dependencies into the lib/ folder of the CloudTripperDSSDemo project.

You should now be able to compile and run the demo from within the Eclipse IDE. You may want to run the "build" ANT build target of the demo project. This will put all necessary .jar file into the dist/ folder, as well as a .jnlp file that can be used to deploy the demo as a Java WebStart application.

Contact

For more information about the demo or help with setting it up, feel free to leave a message on =markus' Contact Page. Or just post to the list.

Background

Social Network Data Model 

We needed a powerful, abstract data model to integrate identity and social network data. Higgins has one ready-made for this purpose. See Higgins Data Model.

IdAS Framework

IdAS provides the common API to social networking data. See IdAS.

Community Dictionary Service

http://cds.idschemas.idcommons.net. (See also http://idschemas.idcommons.net)

Related Efforts

• http://silosync.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and http://motiveforcellc.com/blog/2007/09/27/freedom-opening-the-social-graph-and-all-of-its-data/

Contributors

• Brian Walker - Parity, Higgins, XDI4J
• Duane Buss - Novell, Bandit, Higgins --developed the OpenID Context Provider
• Drummond Reed - Cordance, Parity, OpenID Foundation, XDI TC, OpenXRI Identity Schemas
• Jim Sermersheim - Novell, Bandit, Higgins (IdAS Component "Owner")
• Josh Gan - independent --developed the Facebook F8 Context Provider
• Markus Sabadello - Parity, OpenXRI, XDI4J --worked on the demo app and integration
• Tom Doman - Novell, Bandit, Higgins --worked on the OpenID Context Provider
• Paul Trevithick - Parity, Higgins, Identity Schemas, Identity Gang, OSIS

Misc

Wiki Administrivia