A network of devices permits data to be stored on the devices and subsequently searched and accessed from any other one of the devices. A plurality of channels are defined to distribute a plurality of access points throughout the network. A mechanism securely assigns authorizations to users to read or write from or to specified ones of the channels, which authorizations are capable of being checked by each of the access points. To write into a channel, a request is made to one of the access points which checks if the requesting user is authorized to write onto the requested channel. If appropriate, the data is associated with the requested channel. To search for data from a particular channel or group of channels, a search request is made to one of the access points which first checks the requesting user is authorized to read from the requested channel or group of channels. If appropriate it issues a corresponding search request or requests to a subset of the devices which checks to see if stored data satisfying the request exists there and, if so, the data is transmitted to the requesting user. Otherwise the search request is forwarded to another one or more of the devices.