This paper presents the design, implementationand evaluation of Mingle, a secure distributed search system. Each participating host runs a Mingle server, which maintains an

inverted index of the local file system. Users initiate peer-to-peer keyword searches by typing keywords to lightweight Mingle clients. Central to Mingle are its access control

mechanisms and its insistence on user convenience. For access control, we introduce the idea of access-right mapping, which provides a convenient way for file owners to specify

access permissions. Access control is supported through a single sign-on mechanism that allows users to conveniently establish their identity to Mingle servers, such that subsequent

authentication occurs automatically, with minimal manual involvement. Preliminary performance evaluation suggests that Mingle is both feasible and scalable.

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In  Proc. of The Eleventh IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC)

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