Representation-Independent Data Usage Control

Abstract

Abstract. Usage control is concerned with what happens to data after access has been granted. In the literature, usage control models have been defined on the grounds of events that, somehow, are related to data. In order to better cater to the dimension of data, we extend a usage control model by the explicit distinction between data and representation of data. A data flow model is used to track the flow of data in-between different representations. The usage control model is then extended so that usage control policies can address not just one single representation (e.g., delete file1.txt after thirty days) but rather all representations of the data (e.g., if file1.txt is a copy of file2.txt, also delete file2.txt). We present three proof-of-concept implementations of the model, at the operating system level, at the browser level, and at the X11 level, and also provide an ad-hoc implementation for cross-layer enforcement.

Automated Translation of End User Policies for Usage Control Enforcement

“…Together, step 4 and 5 are called policy instantiation and they might be switched in order, depending upon the context detail to be added and the corresponding system implementation. Generic Architecture: We build upon an existing generic usage control infrastructure with three main components: a Policy Enforcement Point (PEP), able to observe, intercept, possibly modify and generate events in the system; a Policy Decision Point (PDP), representing the core of the usage control monitoring logic; and a Policy Information Point (PIP), which provides the data-container mapping to the PDP [5]. This infrastructure was extended with a Policy Management Point (PMP) with a dedicated sub-component, the Policy Translation Point (PTP) for policy derivation using action refinement.…”

“…In usage control, several enforcements exist at and across different layers of abstraction in various types of systems [2,3,5,[16][17][18]. In all these implementations, the focus has been on the implementation of event monitors; policy derivation has not been addressed.…”

“…Policies on data usually need to be interpreted as policies on all representations of that data. We therefore rely on a data flow model [5] that defines system states as mappings between data and containers at a moment in time. The transition relation on states is the change in these mappings.…”

“…The transition relation on states is the change in these mappings. Policy enforcement on data is done on the basis of data flow tracking which is monitored on grounds of the transition relation [5].…”

Compliance Monitoring of Third-Party Applications in Online Social Networks

“…Our solution works as follows: Data usage control technology [7,12,18,19] is integrated into the Software Execution Environment (SEE) (e.g., Java Runtime Environment (RTE), .NET CLR, PHP interpreter) which is then supposed to be provided in a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) manner by trustworthy entities. Such trustworthy entities might include the OSN operator herself, public universities, or consumer protection organizations (cf.…”