Title: Services-oriented URL filtering and verification

Authors: Aili Wang; Chao Wang; Xi Li; Xuehai Zhou; Nadia Nedjah

Addresses: School of Software Engineering, Suzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Science and Technology of China, Ren'ai Road No.166, Suzhou 215123, China ' School of Computer Science, University of Science and Technology of China, P.O. Box 4, Hefei 230027, China ' School of Computer Science, University of Science and Technology of China, P.O. Box 4, Hefei 230027, China ' School of Computer Science, University of Science and Technology of China, P.O. Box 4, Hefei 230027, China ' Department of Electronics Engineering and Telecommunications, Center for Technology and Science, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rua São Francisco Xavier, 524, Room F-5145, Maracanã, 20550-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Abstract: Teenagers' online safety problem has become increasingly important. To tackle this problem, this paper proposes a services-oriented URL filtering and verification mechanism. A services-oriented browser architecture prototype has been implemented, named SOBA. SOBA is the first in literature that introduces SOA concepts into the web browser design paradigm. It contains a server cluster, which employs URL filter functions to verify the URL access, while whitelists and validation results are wrapped as services. Meanwhile, a customised SOBA client is in charge of data conversion and website navigation while verification workloads are deployed on the server side. Administrators can manage URL databases through back stage websites. A prototyping software browser of SOBA demonstrates that SOA concepts can greatly improve the online safety with high flexibility and modularity.

Keywords: service-oriented architecture; SOA; service-oriented browser architecture; URL filtering; URL verification; distributed verification; teenagers; young people; online safety; web browsers; web browser design; whitelists; data conversion; website navigation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHPSA.2013.058974

International Journal of High Performance Systems Architecture, 2013 Vol.4 No.4, pp.183 - 195

Received: 25 Apr 2013
Accepted: 06 Jun 2013
Published online: 25 Jul 2014 *

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