Trust establishment in mobile distributed computing platforms

提出研究的目的是提供可用于在移动分布式计算平台中建立信任的机制。最初的任务将是允许移动终端向现有的分布式计算机固定网络验证自己。然而，虽然身份验证可以建立任何两个连接方的身份，但这还不足以建立信任，使网络中的每台计算机都按照预期的方式运行。已经提出了基于实体声誉建立信任的机制。但是，这种声誉应该与一个不能轻易改变的特定身份绑定，否则，一个获得不良声誉的实体可能会改变其身份，建立良好的声誉。如果不建立稳定的身份，还可能出现其他问题。可信计算组是一个主要的研究联盟，它正在开发允许将身份绑定到特定计算平台的标准。此外，可信计算技术允许平台对其状态进行验证。换句话说，稳定id可用于签署一条消息，该消息说明平台正在运行的操作系统以及在任何时刻正在运行的其他软件应用程序。该证明可由挑战者验证。可信计算技术提供的另一种安全机制是“密封”数据的思想。数据可以被密封或加密，只有在受信任的平台处于特定状态时才能访问。因此，该机制可用于确保仅当已知的可信应用程序在可信平台上运行时才释放数据。提出的研究将探讨如何将可信计算机制应用于e-Science网络，通过提供稳定的平台身份来支持基于声誉的信任机制。此外，一旦建立了平台的稳定身份和声誉，本研究将调查如何使用密封和认证等技术来为挑战者提供一定程度的信心，即平台正在运行可以信任的软件来维护数据安全。与此同时，拟议的研究将调查如何使用数字版权管理（DRM）技术来保护电子科学网格中的数据。DRM目前用于保护多媒体内容，方法是对内容进行加密，使其只能由授权的观众访问。与内容相关的访问需求与内容本身一起传播。但是，允许查看内容的授权权限绑定到每个接收者。只有当权限符合访问要求时，才会对内容进行解密。如果e-Science网格中的平台能够支持可信计算机制，那么它就可以与DRM技术一起用于控制对敏感数据的访问。建议的研究将探讨如何使用可信计算的密封和证明机制来定义DRM所需的授权权限。通过这种方式，敏感数据可以安全地发布到网格中，并提供给任何平台，并确信只有那些可以信任以保护数据的平台才能访问这些数据。这项拟议研究的结果是，e-Science网格将能够提供更大的保证，即它可以被信任来保护敏感数据。从而允许更广泛地使用其资源。医疗保健界将是明显的受益者。电子医疗保健倡议是一个主要的欧洲项目，旨在为医疗保健提供电子基础设施。本研究拟研究的信任机制可作为交换和处理敏感病人记录和诊断数据提供安全保障的基础。

The aim of the proposed research is to provide mechanims that can be used to establish trust in mobile distributed computing platforms. The initial task will be to allow mobile terminals to authenticate themselves to the existing fixed network of distributed computers. However, while authentication may establish the identity of an any two connected parties, this is not enough to establish trust that each computer in the network will behave as expected. Mechanisms have been proposed to establish trust based on an entitiy's reputation. This reputation, however, should be bound to a specific identity that cannot be easilly changed, otherwise an entity that had gained a poor reputation could change its identity and esablish a good reputation. There are other problem that may arise too, if stable identities are not established.The trusted computing group is a major research consortium who are developing standards that allow identity to be bound to specific computing platforms. Moreover, trusted computing technology allows the platform to attest to its state. In other words, the stable id can be used to sign a message stating what operating system the platform is running and what other software applications are running at any moment in time. This attestation can be verified by a challenger. Another security mechanism provided by trusted computing technology is the idea of 'sealing' data. Data may be sealed, or encrypted in such a way that it can only be accessed when the trusted platform is in a particular state. This mechanism can therefore be used to make sure data is released only when known trusted applications are running on the trusted platform.The research proposed will investigate how the mechanisms of trusted computing may be applied to the e-Science network to support reputation based trust mechanisms by providing stable platform identities. Furthermore, once the stable identity and reputation of a platform has been established, this research will investigate how techniques like sealing and attestation may be used to provide a challenger with a degree of confidence that a the platform is running software that can be trusted to maintain data security.In conjunction with this, the proposed research will investigate how the techniques of digital rights management (DRM) may be used to protect data in the e-Science grid. DRM is currently used to protect multimedia content by scrambling the content so that it can only be accessed by authorized viewers. The access requirements associated with the content are broadcast with the content itself. The authorization rights that allow the content to be viewed, however, are bound to each receiver. Only if the rights match the access requirements will the content be descrambled.If platform in the e-Science grid can support the trusted computing mechanisms then it may be used with DRM techniques to control access to sensitive data. The proposed research will investigate how the sealing and attestation mechanisms of trusted computing may be used to define the authorization rights required by DRM. In this way sensitive data may be securely released to the grid, and given to any platform, with confidence that it will only be accessed by those platforms that can be trusted to protect the data.The consequence of this proposed research is that the e-Science grid will be able to provide greater assurance that it can be trusted to protect sensitive data. Thus allowing wider access to its resources. The obvious beneficiary of this will be the health care community. The e-Healthcare initiative is a major European project to provide an electronic infrastructure for health care. The trust mechanisms to be investigated by the proposed research could form the basis of providing security for the exchange and processing of sensitive patient records and diagnostic data.