A policy language for a pervasive computing environment

TLDR

Pervasive computing environments involve mobile people and devices using wireless networking to discover nearby services, are highly dynamic, span multiple domains, and contain entities with varied capabilities, making them suitable for policy‑based security. The paper proposes a lightweight, expressive, and extensible policy language based on deontic concepts and a semantic language for pervasive computing environments. The language enables dynamic modification of security functionality by allowing policies to be defined and applied without altering entity implementations. Prototype experiments confirm the feasibility of the policy language within secure pervasive systems.

Abstract

We describe a policy language designed for pervasive computing applications that is based on deontic concepts and grounded in a semantic language. The pervasive computing environments under consideration are those in which people and devices are mobile and use various wireless networking technologies to discover and access services and devices in their vicinity. Such pervasive environments lend themselves to policy-based security due to their extremely dynamic nature. Using policies allows the security functionality to be modified without changing the implementation of the entities involved. However, along with being extremely dynamic, these environments also tend to span several domains and be made up of entities of varied capabilities. A policy language for environments of this sort needs to be very expressive but lightweight and easily extensible. We demonstrate the feasibility of our policy language in pervasive environments through a prototype used as part of a secure pervasive system.