Trustworthy Data Sharing and Management for Collaborative Pervasive Computing Applications

协同普适计算应用可以极大地提高许多领域的科学家和工程师的研究能力和工作效率。这样的应用程序的用户通常通过移动自组织网络(MANET)、局域网和因特网形成组，以在他们的计算设备(包括台式计算机、袖珍PC和/或智能电话)的支持下协作地执行他们的任务。协同普适计算应用的用户通常需要共享各种类型的数据，包括实验数据、敏感文档、多媒体数据等。在数据共享和管理中，一个非常重要的问题就是可信性。为了支持协同普适计算应用中用户组之间的可信数据共享和管理，需要安全的组通信、可信的共享数据发现、灵活的访问控制机制、有效的数据复制、数据质量保证机制和入侵检测机制。针对协同普适计算环境下的可信共享数据发现和灵活的访问控制机制研究较少的问题，提出了一种可信共享数据服务管理的创新方法，为协同普适计算应用用户提供共享、发现和访问共享数据的能力。我们的方法将基于Web服务体系结构、新兴的OWL技术以及我们的可重配置上下文敏感中间件(RCSM)和安全组通信服务(SGCS)。在我们提出的方法中，共享数据服务被用来提供对共享数据的访问接口。我们提出的可信共享数据服务管理将包括可信共享数据服务规范和生成、共享数据服务发现以及对共享数据服务的安全访问。该研究将产生一种新的可信共享数据服务管理技术，包括基于OWL的可信共享数据服务规范语言、服务自动生成技术、可信共享数据服务发现协议和轻量级情景感知访问控制框架。预期的结果将以一套中间件组件和服务的形式实现，以支持协同普适计算应用中可信数据共享和管理能力的开发。我们将开发一个演示应用程序来演示和评估我们的预期结果。所提出的研究的智能优点包括：(A)使用自动生成的Web服务作为访问共享数据的统一接口以克服组织障碍；(B)将访问控制策略与基于OWL的数据描述和访问接口规范相集成以增强语义互操作性并实现智能服务发现；(C)在访问控制中加入情况感知以根据不同安全域中的情况和不同的本地访问控制模型来实施灵活的高粒度访问控制策略；以及(D)开发轻量级的访问控制策略，安全容错的服务发现协议。该研究将产生以下更广泛的影响：(1)研究结果可以极大地提高用户对协同普适计算应用的信心，提高普适计算环境下科学家、工程师和/或商人之间协同研发的有效性。(2)由于建议的研究基于广为接受的Web服务架构和万维网联盟(W3C)的资源描述框架(RDF)标准，因此建议的研究结果可以扩展到使用互联网、网格和语义网的一般应用程序，增加了可信度。(3)建议的研究结果将作为亚利桑那州立大学高级/研究生级别的信息保证课程和新的研究生级别的数据和应用程序安全课程的一部分。这些课程中的新材料应该会吸引优质学生参与网络信任的研究。

Collaborative pervasive computing applications can greatly improve the investigative capabilities and productivity of scientists and engineers in many fields. Users of such applications usually form groups to collaboratively perform their tasks, supported by their computing devices, including desktop computers, pocket PCs, and/or smart phones, over Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET), LAN and Internet. Users of collaborative pervasive computing applications usually need to share various types of data, including experimental data, sensitive documents, multimedia data, etc. In data sharing and management, a very important issue is trustworthiness. To support trustworthy data sharing and management among groups of users for collaborative pervasive computing applications, secure group communication, trustworthy shared data discovery, flexible access control mechanisms, effective data replication, data quality assurance mechanisms, and intrusion detection mechanisms are needed. So far, little research has been done in trustworthy shared data discovery and flexible access control mechanisms for collaborative pervasive computing environments.In this proposal, an innovative approach is proposed to trustworthy shared data service management to provide users of collaborative pervasive computing applications with the capabilities of sharing, discovering and accessing shared data with high confidence. Our approach will be based on Web Services architecture, emerging OWL technology and our Reconfigurable Context-Sensitive Middleware (RCSM) and Secure Group Communication Service (SGCS). In our proposed approach, shared data services are used to provide access interfaces to shared data. Our proposed trustworthy shared data service management will include trustworthy shared data service specification and generation, shared data service discovery, and secure access to shared data services. The proposed research will generate a new trustworthy shared data service management technique, including an OWL-based trustworthy shared data service specification language, an automated service generation technique, a trustworthy shared data service discovery protocol and a lightweight situation-aware access control framework. The expected results will be implemented as a set of middleware components and services to support the development of trustworthy data sharing and management capability in collaborative pervasive computing applications. We will develop a demonstration application to demonstrate and evaluate our expected results. The intellectual merits of the proposed research includes (a) using automatically generated web services as the unified interface for accessing shared data to overcome organizational barriers, (b) integrating access control policies with OWL-based data description and access interface specification to enhance semantic interoperability and enable intelligent service discovery, (c) incorporating situation-awareness in access control to enforce flexible high-grained access control policies based on the situation and different local access control models in various security domains, and (d) developing a lightweight, secure and fault-tolerant service discovery protocol.The proposed research will have the following broader impacts: (1) The results of the proposed research can greatly improve the user confidence in collaborative pervasive computing applications and increase the effectiveness of collaborative research or development among scientists, engineers and/or businessmen in pervasive computing environments. (2) Since the proposed research is based on the widely accepted Web Services architecture and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the results of the proposed research can be extended to general applications using Internet, Grid and Semantic Web, with increased trustworthiness.(3) The results of the proposed research will be included as a part of the senior/graduate level course on information assurance and a new graduate-level course on data and application security at Arizona State University. The new material in these courses should attract high-quality students to participate in research on cyber trust.