Security for GIS N-tier Architecture

Abstract

Security is an important topic in the Information Systems and their applications, especially within the Internet environment. Security issue for geospatial data is a relatively unexplored topic in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This paper analyzes the security solutions for Geographical Information Storage Systems (GISS) within n-tier GIS architecture. The first section outlines the application of the main categories of database security for management spatial data. These categories are then analyzed from a point of view of application within GIS. A File System within Database (FSDB) with traditional and new encryption algorithms has been proposed to be used as a new GISS solution. A FSDB provides more safe and secure storage for spatial files and support centralized authentication and access control mechanism in legacy DBMS. Cryptography solutions as a topic of central importance to many aspects of network security are discussed in detail. This part of the paper describes several traditional and new symmetric, fast and nonlinear encryption algorithms' implementation with fixed and flexible key sizes.