A new security model for collaborative environments

Conference · Fri Jun 06 04:00:00 EDT 2003

OSTI ID:816544

Agarwal, Deborah ^[1]; Lorch, Markus ^[2]; Thompson, Mary ^[3]; Perry, Marcia ^[3]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); LBNL Library
2. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Prevalent authentication and authorization models for distributed systems provide for the protection of computer systems and resources from unauthorized use. The rules and policies that drive the access decisions in such systems are typically configured up front and require trust establishment before the systems can be used. This approach does not work well for computer software that moderates human-to-human interaction. This work proposes a new model for trust establishment and management in computer systems supporting collaborative work. The model supports the dynamic addition of new users to a collaboration with very little initial trust placed into their identity and supports the incremental building of trust relationships through endorsements from established collaborators. It also recognizes the strength of a users authentication when making trust decisions. By mimicking the way humans build trust naturally the model can support a wide variety of usage scenarios. Its particular strength lies in the support for ad-hoc and dynamic collaborations and the ubiquitous access to a Computer Supported Collaboration Workspace (CSCW) system from locations with varying levels of trust and security.

• Research Organization: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: Virginia Commonwealth Information Security Center (CISC) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 816544
• Report Number(s): LBNL--52894
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTERS
INCREMENTAL TRUST SECURITY COLLABORATORY AUTHENTICATION AUTHORIZATION
MANAGEMENT
SECURITY