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Annual Asian Computing Science Conference

ASIAN 2003: Advances in Computing Science – ASIAN 2003. Progamming Languages and Distributed Computation Programming Languages and Distributed Computation pp 224–242Cite as

Paradigm Regained: Abstraction Mechanisms for Access Control

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2896))

Abstract

Access control systems must be evaluated in part on how well they enable one to distribute the access rights needed for cooperation, while simultaneously limiting the propagation of rights which would create vulnerabilities. Analysis to date implicitly assumes access is controlled only by manipulating a system’s protection state – the arrangement of the access graph. Because of the limitations of this analysis, capability systems have been ”proven” unable to enforce some basic policies: revocation, confinement, and the *-properties (explained in the text).

In actual practice, programmers build access abstractions – programs that help control access, extending the kinds of access control that can be expressed. Working in Dennis and van Horn’s original capability model, we show how abstractions were used in actual capability systems to enforce the above policies. These simple, often tractable programs limited the rights of arbitrarily complex, untrusted programs. When analysis includes the possibility of access abstractions, as it must, the original capability model is shown to be stronger than is commonly supposed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Johns Hopkins University,  

    Mark S. Miller

  2. Johns Hopkins University,  

    Jonathan S. Shapiro

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  1. Mark S. Miller
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  2. Jonathan S. Shapiro
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, PO Box 704, 10598, NY

    Vijay A. Saraswat

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Miller, M.S., Shapiro, J.S. (2003). Paradigm Regained: Abstraction Mechanisms for Access Control. In: Saraswat, V.A. (eds) Advances in Computing Science – ASIAN 2003. Progamming Languages and Distributed Computation Programming Languages and Distributed Computation. ASIAN 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2896. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40965-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-40965-6_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20632-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-40965-6

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