Blog: ECS Researcher Highlights Need for Transparency on the Web

ECS Researcher Highlights Need for Transparency on the Web
University of Southampton (United Kingdom) (11/16/10) Joyce Lewis

The complex flows of information on the Web make it difficult to determine where information originates from, says University of Southampton professor Luc Moreau. "This is a challenge since we want to be able to establish the exact source of information, we want to decide whether information has been altered, and by whom, we want to corroborate and possibly reproduce such information, and ultimately we want to decide whether the information comes from a trustworthy source," Moreau says. The solution lies in provenance, which focuses on establishing that an object has not been forged or altered, and could apply to computer-generated data. He says enabling users to determine where data comes from and decide if it is trustworthy will lead to a new generation of Web services that are capable of producing trusted information. Moreau notes that systems would become transparent as a result of provenance. "Our aim, with the community of researchers, is to establish a standard method to ascertain the provenance of information on the Web," he says.

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