Authorization in distributed systems: a formal approach

Author

Woo, Thomas Y C ; Lam, Simon S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Texas Univ., Austin, TX, USA

fYear

1992

fDate

4-6 May 1992

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

50

Abstract

It is argued that authorization is an independent semantic concept that must be separated from implementation mechanisms and given a precise semantics. A logical approach to representing and evaluating authorization is proposed. Specifically, a language for specifying policy bases is introduced. A policy base encodes a set of authorization requirements and is given a precise semantics based on a formal notion of authorization policy. The semantics is computable, thus providing a basis for authorization evaluation. Two composition operators for policy bases which are appropriate for modeling distributed systems with multiple administrative domains are introduced

Keywords

authorisation; distributed processing; message authentication; specification languages; authentication; authorization; distributed systems; policy base; specification language; Access control; Authorization; Control systems; Distributed computing; File systems; Large-scale systems; Permission; Production facilities; Protection; Security;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Research in Security and Privacy, 1992. Proceedings., 1992 IEEE Computer Society Symposium on

Conference_Location

Oakland, CA

Print_ISBN

0-8186-2825-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RISP.1992.213272

Filename

213272