Collective signature for efficient authentication of XML documents

Abstract

XML (extensible Markup Language) is the de-facto standard for document representation and exchange on the Web. Researchers have previously proposed access control models and schemes for XML documents that allow one to disseminate selectively, portions of an XML document to the user community based on different policies. Such selective dissemination of an XML document creates a new problem, namely, how to authenticate portions of the XML document independent of other portions and/or the complete document. In this paper, we present a novel scheme based on one-way accumulator functions that allows the user to have a guarantee that a portion of an XML document does indeed belong to the original document. © 2004 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.