An improved UCONA-based authorization policy specification for ubiquitous systems

Abstract

Anywhere and anytime access to information within computing infrastructures is a purpose of ubiquitous computing. The new security challenges are posed while the information can be accessed at anywhere and anytime since it may be applied by malicious users. A key issue in ubiquitous systems is not who can use sharing resources, but how to control the usage of sharing resources. Usage CONtrol (UCON) is a consolidated solution for this problem. However, the authorization mechanisms of ubiquitous systems do not offer elaborate authorization responses. We extend and improve the UCONA-based authorization policy specification based on a delegation certification offering an elaborate authorization response. Then we show the flexibility and expressive capability of our policy specification through an application example. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.