Review and Revocation of Access Privileges Distributed Through Capabilities

Abstract

The problems of review and revocation of access privileges are presented in the context of the systems that use capabilities for the long-term distribution of access privileges. An approach that solves both of these problems in their-most general form is presented in this paper. The approach requires that a capability propagation graph be maintained in memory spaces associated with subjects (e.g., domains, processes, etc.) that make copies of the respective capability; the graph remains inaccessible to those subjects, however. Parallel processes of the operating system update the graph as the system runs.