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Distributing private data in challenged network environments

Published: 26 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Developing countries face significant challenges in network access, making even simple network tasks unpleasant. Many standard techniques - caching and predictive prefetching - help somewhat, but provide little or no assistance for personal data that is needed only by a single user. Sulula addresses this problem by leveraging the near-ubiquity of cellular phones able to send and receive simple SMS messages. Rather than visit a kiosk and fetch data on demand - a tiresome process at best - users request a future visit. If capacity exists, the kiosk can schedule secure retrieval of that user's data, saving time and more efficiently utilizing the kiosk's limited connectivity. When the user arrives at a provisioned kiosk, she need only obtain the session key on-demand, and thereafter has instant access. In addition, Sulula allows users to schedule data uploads. Experimental results show significant gains for the end user, saving tens of minutes of time for a typical email/news reading session. We also describe a small, ongoing deployment in-country for proof-of-concept, lessons learned from that experience, and provide a discussion on pricing and marketplace issues that remain to be addressed to make the system viable for developing-world access.

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  1. Distributing private data in challenged network environments

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    Published In

    cover image ACM Other conferences
    WWW '10: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World wide web
    April 2010
    1407 pages
    ISBN:9781605587998
    DOI:10.1145/1772690

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 26 April 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. band-width
    2. caching
    3. developing regions
    4. ethiopia
    5. latency
    6. limited connectivity
    7. personal data
    8. prefetching
    9. sms
    10. www access

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    WWW '10
    WWW '10: The 19th International World Wide Web Conference
    April 26 - 30, 2010
    North Carolina, Raleigh, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 1,899 of 8,196 submissions, 23%

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    Cited By

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    • (2017)Performing Initiative Data Prefetching in Distributed File Systems for Cloud ComputingIEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing10.1109/TCC.2015.24175605:3(550-562)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2017
    • (2015)Using SMS to Transfer Small Data Packets during Periods of High Workload on Mobile Data NetworksProceedings of the 2015 XXXIII Brazilian Symposium on Computer Networks and Distributed Systems10.1109/SBRC.2015.40(278-287)Online publication date: 18-May-2015
    • (2013)A mobile market for agricultural trade in UgandaProceedings of the 4th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2537052.2537065(1-10)Online publication date: 6-Dec-2013
    • (2012)Cyber Foraging: Bridging Mobile and Cloud ComputingSynthesis Lectures on Mobile and Pervasive Computing10.2200/S00447ED1V01Y201209MPC0107:2(1-103)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2012
    • (2012)Push notification for challenged networksProceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2160601.2160625(1-1)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2012
    • (2012)Tackling vehicular fraud in EthiopiaProceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Computing for Development10.1145/2160601.2160615(1-9)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2012
    • (2011)Towards improved web accelerationProceedings of the 5th ACM workshop on Networked systems for developing regions10.1145/1999927.1999943(57-62)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2011
    • (2011)Analyzing and accelerating web access in a school in peri-urban IndiaProceedings of the 20th international conference companion on World wide web10.1145/1963192.1963358(443-452)Online publication date: 28-Mar-2011
    • (2010)RobitProceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/2369220.2369257(1-10)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2010

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