Abstract:
Supporting statements are provided to help safely and efficiently construct and verify proofs necessary for deciding whether to grant a request from one entity for accessing a resource owned or administered by another entity.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention relates generally to access control, and more particularly to credential-based access control in a distributed access control system. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   A computing environment may contain a variety of entities and resources. Entities may include users, operating systems, applications, processes, threads, objects, etc. Resources may include information, files, network connections, properties and methods of objects, etc. Generally, when one entity (“client”) wants to access a resource owned or administered by another entity (“server”), the client issues an access request to the server. The server may use a program that manages the resource (“resource manager”) to decide whether to grant the access request. The decision process is usually called an access control process. The resource manager may make the decision by consulting pre-configured access policies for the resource (“use policy”). The resource manager, the resource, and the associated use policy may be considered as parts of the server. The resource manager and the associated use policy constitute an access control system. 
   Traditional access control systems tend to be static and closed with regard to which entity can access a resource. In such access control systems, a client typically is an authenticated entity that is locally known to the server, and information needed to make a decision is usually available locally on the server. As a result, the server needs to administer the entire complexity of access control locally and cannot delegate some of the administration work to other entities. 
   The development of distributed and dynamic computing environments, such as the Internet, has made static and closed access control systems inadequate. For example, an entity that is not locally known to a server may request to access a resource on the server. The entity may provide information for the resource manager to use during its decision process. The information provided by an entity can be a reply to a proposition from the server that requests the entity to prove before granting the entity the requested access. Such a reply is also called a proof. The entity may supply credential statements along with the access request. The credential statements provide information to identify who the entity is. The credential statements may include more than authentication information used to help determine who the entity is. The credential statements may also include additional policy statements. Because the authenticity and integrity of policy statements can be secured with current cryptographic technologies, an owner of a resource may remotely author policy statements and provide the policy statements to a client. The client can then present the policy statements to the resource manager of the resource. The resource manager may then check the veracity of the policy statements and consult with the owner of the resource. The resource manager may eventually provide access in a manner consistent with the resource owner&#39;s intent as expressed in the policy statements. 
   The ability to configure policy remotely through cryptographically protected statements provides many opportunities for an access control system to depart from the traditional closed and static model. For example, a client may bring a statement authored by an entity that certifies the client to be a member of a pre-determined group. The client may also bring a statement authored by the resource owner, saying that members of the group, according to the entity, may access the resource. Together, these statements imply that the client should be able to access the resource. In such an example, the resource manager may have no prior knowledge of the entity that certifies the client to be a member of the authenticated group. The resource manager also may not know a priori that the resource owner has delegated the certifying ability to the entity only for the purpose of this specific access control decision. 
   Certain approaches, such as ISO Rights Expression Language (XrML 2.x) and Delegation Logic, represent statements in a logical form so that the access control decision can be computed symbolically from the statements themselves. More specifically, these approaches have their basis in predicate calculus, and their computing process on whether access should be granted according to the owner&#39;s intent is equivalent to finding a proof The proof-based approach has several advantages. The most important advantage is that it provides a mathematically verifiable reason why access ought to be granted. Another advantage is that there is no need to translate the meaning of the expression to some other form to uncover the owner&#39;s intent; reasoning can be done at the expression level itself. 
   To enable diverse delegation scenarios, a resource manager needs to process the statements provided by clients and decide whether or not to grant the requested access. To allow for multiple statements to imply access in a scalable and manageable fashion, a resource manager needs to reason with the underlying meaning and intent inherent in the statements supplied by a client. Such a reasoning process may be called “computing the proof” or “theorem proving.” 
   However, the process of theorem proving can become cumbersome. Declarative authorization systems are closely aligned with declarative programming languages, such as Prolog. Theorem proving is computationally equivalent to the imperative semantics of more common programming systems like C++, C#, or Java. As such, theorem proving can be used to encode arbitrary computation problems, i.e. arbitrary computer programs. As such, theoretical limitations exist as to how fast proofs can be computed. For example, for full predicate calculus, in the worst case, no existing algorithm can guarantee to terminate when computing proofs just as there exist questions that cannot be answered in C++, C#, etc. As a result, a decision on access control may never be reached for this class of problems. The open ending may expose a resource manager to adversary attacks. For example, a client can build bogus assertions to severely task a resource manager into computing proofs, including constructing proofs of unbounded size. The bogus assertions may also induce a resource manager to spend an unbounded amount of time and/or space in order to conclude the nonexistence of a proof. When a resource manager enters endless computation, the resource manager has to deny services to other entities. Such situations are called denial of service attacks, which can interrupt network routing services and render networks inoperable. 
   Therefore, there exists a need to relieve a resource manager&#39;s onerous computing of proofs so as to avoid the negative consequences, such as denial of service attacks, brought by endless computing. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The invention addresses the above-identified need by providing supporting statements, i.e., additional assertions that help to construct a proof for safe and efficient verification. The additional assertions enable a resource manager to examine and verify a proof instead of computing a proof. 
   One aspect of the invention provides a system comprising a server component, a client component, and one or more supporting statements, i.e., additional assertions. The server component is any entity that owns or administers a resource. The resource is associated with a use policy that dictates who can access the resource. The client component is any entity that requests to access the resource. The system may be supplemented by one or more entities (“auxiliary clients”). The client component and/or the auxiliary clients supply information such as credential statements and/or additional assertions to the server component. The credential statements identify who the client component is. The credential statements may also include authorization statements supplied by any of the auxiliary clients such as statements certifying that the client component is a member of a pre-determined group. The client component may not be a trusted entity for the server component. As long as the server component can verify that the proof resulting from information supplied by the client component is correct, the server component will grant the client component the requested access. 
   The one or more assertions are used to instruct how to construct a proof to demonstrate that the client component should be granted the requested access. The one or more assertions may be supplied by the server component and used by the client component to construct a proof demonstrating that the requested access should be granted. Alternatively, the client component may supply one or more assertions and credential statements to the server component, which then constructs a proof to demonstrate that the access request should be granted. An assertion may assign a value to a variable or prove a prerequisite clause in one of the credential or use policy statements. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the one or more assertions may instruct how to construct only part of, instead of the entire proof that is necessary to decide whether the requested access should be granted or not. 
   Another aspect of the invention provides a method where a server component sends a client component a proposition upon receiving an access request from the client component. The proposition includes additional assertions that help the client component to construct a proof demonstrating that the client should be granted the requested access. 
   A further aspect of the invention provides a method where a client component sends an access request to a server component, along with credential statements and additional assertions. The additional assertions instruct the server component on how to use the credential statements to derive a conclusion on whether to grant the requested access. 
   Regardless of whether it is the client component or the server component that supplies the additional assertions, the server component will examine the proof resulting from applying the additional assertions and decide whether the proof is correct. If the proof is correct, the access request will be granted. Otherwise, the access request will be denied. In summary, the invention mitigates the problem presented by onerous computing of proofs by presenting supporting statements, i.e., additional assertions that help to safely and efficiently construct and verify proofs. Consequently, the invention reduces a resource manager&#39;s task to simply checking the validity of a proof, instead of computing the proof to decide whether to grant the requested access. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system for implementing aspects of the invention; 
       FIG. 2  is a textual diagram illustrating an exemplary use policy statement; 
       FIG. 3  is a textual diagram illustrating exemplary credential statements supplied by a client; 
       FIG. 4  is a textual diagram illustrating exemplary additional assertions that help the proof of an access request; 
       FIG. 5  is a textual diagram illustrating exemplary integrated statements that are results of integrating the use policy statement illustrated in  FIG. 2 , the credential statements illustrated in  FIG. 3 , and the additional assertions illustrated in  FIG. 4 ; 
       FIG. 6  is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary routine for a server to process an access request; and 
       FIG. 7  is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary routine for a client to seek permission to access a resource on a server. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system  100  that implements aspects of the invention. As shown in  FIG. 1 , the system  100  includes a server  102  component (“server”) and a client  104  component (“client”), and optionally one or more auxiliary clients  112 . The server  102  includes at least one resource  106  and a corresponding use policy  108  that dictates who can access the resource  106 . The server  102  may further include a resource manager  110  that examines access request and credentials  118  submitted by the client  104  and/or the auxiliary clients  112 . The client  104  is any entity that requests to access the resource  106  on the server  102 . 
   The system  100  may be supplemented by one or more auxiliary clients  112 . An auxiliary client  112  can supply information to either the server  102  or the client  104 . For example, if the client  104  is a company, an auxiliary client  112  can be a subsidiary or a partner of the company. In exemplary embodiments of the invention, an auxiliary client  112  may have its own associates, each of which may also have its own associates, and so on. All the different layers of associates are considered aggregately the auxiliary clients  112 . 
   The client  104  sends to the resource manager  110  an access request and/or credentials  118  for accessing the resource  106 . The credentials, i.e., the credential statements, are used to prove that the client  104  is eligible to access the resource  106 . The credential statements may be supplied by the client  104  and/or one or more auxiliary clients  112 . An auxiliary client  112  may send credential statements to the client  104  or directly to the server  102 . The resource manager processes the received access request and credentials  118  and decides whether to grant the requested access according to the use policy  108 . The resource manager then sends a decision  120  concerning the access request back to the client  104 . 
   More importantly, in exemplary embodiments of the invention, the system  100  also includes additional assertions  114 . The additional assertions may be provided to the server  102  by the client  104  and/or one or more auxiliary clients  112 . In such a situation, the additional assertions  114  will instruct the resource manager  110  on how to process the received credentials to satisfy the requirements specified by the use policy  108 . In some exemplary embodiments of the invention, the additional assertions  114  can be supplied by the resource manager  110  to the client  104  upon the resource manager  110  receiving an access request from the client  104 . The client  104  uses the additional assertions  114  to construct a proof for requesting access to the resource  106 . The additional assertions  114  relieve the resource manager  110  from computing a proof for deciding whether to grant an access request. Instead, the additional assertions  114  enable the resource manager to only examine the correctness of a proof.  FIG. 4  illustrates exemplary additional assertions and will be described in detail later. 
   The system  100  is only an exemplary implementation to illustrate where the invention is applicable. Components of the system  100  may exist on a single computer system or distributed over a network. Generally speaking, the system  100  can exist in any context where a component such as the server  102  needs another component such as the client  104  to provide information to make a decision such as the decision  120  to grant requested access to the resource  106 . Such a context includes, for example, a server machine to another server machine, a client machine to another client machine, two entities within the same machine, and two different processes within a trusted network. In summary, the invention is applicable anywhere where one entity needs information from another entity in order to make a decision. 
   Exemplary embodiments of the invention use access control languages that represent use policy, credential statements, and assertions in a logic form, as opposed to merely data. In a distributed access control system, the client  104  may delegate multiple layers of auxiliary clients  112  to issue credential statements necessary for requesting access to a resource. If data were used for credential statements, at each level of transferring the data from one entity to another entity, the meaning of the data needs to be examined and computed. On the other hand, if the credential statements were represented in logical formats, the distributed access control system will be able to scale smoothly and infinitely since the expression of a credential statement reveals the inherent meaning. 
   In exemplary embodiments of the invention, statements such as use policy statements and credential statements employ three concepts that are widely used in many access control languages. The first concept is the use of variables in a policy statement. For example, the use policy  108  for the resource  106  may state that “Parama can read X,” where the variable “X” represents a universally quantified variable, i.e., the variable X can take any value. A policy statement may also include constraints limiting the values that a variable X can take. For example, the use policy  108  may state that “Parama can read X where X is a text file.” The second concept utilized by statements in the invention is that a policy statement has the ability to specify who can authorize credential statements or assertions for accessing a resource. For example, the use policy  108  may state that “acme.com can make assertions permitting access to the resource  106 .” Statements in exemplary embodiments of the invention also employ the third concept, which allows a statement to predicate assertions based upon other assertions. For example, the use policy  108  may state that “Parama can access the resource  106 , provided that Parama is a Company A employee, according to Company A.” 
   In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the client  104  and/or one or more of the auxiliary clients  112  may possess the relevant credential statements. Alternatively, the credential statements may be stored somewhere else. Then only references to the credential statements are sent to the server  102 . 
     FIGS. 2-5  illustrate an exemplary use policy statement  200 , credential statements  300 , additional assertions  400 , and integrated statements  500  that integrate the use policy statement  200 , the credential statements  300 , and the additional assertions  400 . The exemplary statements used in  FIGS. 2-5  represent or combine the three concepts described above.  FIGS. 2-5  will be described with reference to  FIG. 1 . The entities used in these exemplary statements reflect exemplary components of the system  100 . For example, Contosa.com may be the server  102 ; Parama may be the client  104  requesting to access Web service on Contosa.com; Fabrikam.com and the Fabrikam.com partner Acme.com may be the auxiliary clients  112 . 
     FIG. 2  illustrates one exemplary use policy statement  200  that may be supplied by a use policy such as the use policy  108 . The use policy statement  200  recites: Contosa.com says “X can access the Contosa.com Web service if X is a gold star member authorized by Fabrikam.com.” Assume X is a client requesting to access the Contosa.com Web service. According to the use policy statement  200 , if X can prove that it is a gold star member authorized by Fabrikam.com, then X can gain access to the Contosa.com Web service. 
   In a distributed access control system such as the system  100 , when the level of distribution increases, the server  102  may not know the client  104 . The server  102  may rely on other entities to make statements about a client. Therefore, credential statements that a server  102  receives from a client  104  may contain credential statements supplied by several entities, including the client  104  and/or one or more auxiliary clients  112 .  FIG. 3  illustrates a set of credential statements  300  that the server Contosa.com may receive from the client Parama and/or the auxiliary clients Fabrikam.com and Acme.com. As shown in  FIG. 3 , the credential statement  300 A recites: Fabrikam.com says “X can issue gold star member certifications if X is a Fabrikam.com partner.” This statement also implies that Fabrikam.com designates who Fabrikam.com partners are. The credential statement  300 B recites: Fabrikam.com says “Acme.com is a Fabrikam.com partner.” The credential statement  300 C recites: Acme.com says “Parama is a gold star member.” 
   Now assume Parama makes an access request to Contosa.com and presents the credential statements  300 . Conventionally, the resource manager of Contosa.com needs to work through the use policy statement  200  and the credential statements  300  to compute a proof on whether Parama should or should not have the requested access. The resource manager looks through each of the credential statements in order to decide which credential statement is applicable to the use policy. The credential statements provide a cascading logic that enables the resource manager to make the decision. The computing process performed by the resource manager can get arbitrarily complicated if the resource manager receives many credential statements, which can happen, for example, when many layers of auxiliary clients are involved in providing credential statements for Parama. When there are many credential statements, it becomes intractable for the server to arrange the credential statements in a way to induce the proof. Most likely, the computing process may never end. The server  102  can potentially need unbounded search space and cannot know a priori how long it actually takes to figure out whether to grant the requested access or not. 
   One aspect of the invention addresses this issue by providing additional assertions that instructs on how to construct a proof, using the relevant credential statements. For example, an assertion can assign a value to a variable in a use policy statement. An assertion can also instruct the proof of one prerequisite clause in a user policy statement.  FIG. 4  illustrates exemplary additional assertions  400  that the exemplary client Parama may supply to the exemplary server Contosa.com. As shown in  FIG. 4 , the assertion  400 A recites: Replace X with Parama in Statement # 1 . The assertion  400 B recites: Replace X with Acme.com in Statement # 2 . The assertion  400 C recites: Use Statement # 3  to satisfy Statement # 6 . The assertion  400 D recites: Justify Statement # 4  with Statement # 7 . The assertion  400 E recites: Use Statement # 8  to satisfy Statement # 5 . 
   The additional assertions  400  advise a resource manager of Contosa.com how to put the credential statements  300  together to arrive at a proof. As a result, instead of facing the potentially undetermined amount of work to establish whether Parama can access the Contosa.com Web service by searching through all species of possible consequences for the credential statements  300 , the resource manager of Contosa.com Web service now only needs to follow the instructions in the additional assertions  400  explicitly. The additional assertions thus enable the invention to provide a systematic and efficient way to process use policy and credential statements to arrive at a proof. 
     FIG. 5  illustrates the integrated statements  500  resulted from a resource manager of Contosa.com executing the instructions in the additional assertions  300  on the user policy statement  200  and the credential integrated statement  300 . As shown in  FIG. 5 , the integrated statement  500 A recites: Contosa.com says “Parama can access the resource if Parama is a gold star member authorized by Fabrikam.com.” The integrated statement  500 B recites: Fabrikam.com says “Acme.com can issue gold star member certifications if Acme.com is a Fabrikam.com partner according to Fabrikam.com.” The integrated statement  500 C recites: Fabrikam.com says “Acme.com can issue gold star member certifications.” The integrated statement  500 D recites: Fabrikam.com says “Parama is a gold star member.” The integrated statement  500 E thus concludes: Contosa.com says “Parama can access the Contosa.com Web service.” 
   Therefore, a resource manager for the exemplary server Contosa.com can use the additional assertions  400  to conclude in a straightforward fashion that Contosa.com has implicitly authorized Parama access to the Contosa.com Web service. When applying each of the additional assertions  400 , all Contosa.com needs to check is that it is possible to apply this assertion. In other words, the entity presenting the assertions cannot make Contosa.com do something that is not implied by the use policy statement  200  and the credential statements  300 . 
   Additional assertions can be provided to either a server or a client. Upon receiving additional assertions from a client or auxiliary clients, a resource manager of a server uses the additional assertions to construct a proof and then examines the proof instead of computing the proof. In exemplary embodiments of the invention, as soon as a server receives and reads through a set of credential statements and additional assertions, the server can figure out whether to grant the requested access request or not. 
   Alternatively, a server can supply additional assertions to a client. Upon receiving an access request from a client, the server can reply with a proposition. The proposition may include additional assertions to instruct the client on how to construct a proof for the server in order to obtain the requested access. Thus, the server will receive from the client the needed proof. All the server needs to do is to examine the proof to determine whether the proof provides a valid conclusion according to the use policy associated with the requested resource. 
   In exemplary embodiments of the invention, a server does not have to trust the proof supplied by a client. The server can check the veracity of the credential statements and the additional assertions. This means that the credential statements and the additional assertions do not have to come from trusted entities, because a resource manager of the server cannot be tricked into believing non-proofs to be proofs. The steps that an assertion asks a resource manager to perform should only create actions that are already implied, such as replacing variables in the use policy. Therefore, a client cannot lie to a server to induce the server to arrive at a proof that is false. If an additional assertion supplied is false, the server cannot find the proof. Additional assertions can only help the server make the proof, but cannot trick the server to make a fake proof. If an additional assertion is false, the server will not be able to arrive at a proof. This is analogous to navigating a maze. Computing a proof is like finding a path out of a maze, which may be difficult. On the contrary, verifying whether a given path is a correct path is much easier: If the given path leads to an exit of the maze, then the given path is a correct path. Additional assertions are equivalent to a “given path.” A set of given additional assertions is correct if they lead the server to arrive at a proof; the set of given additional assertions is incorrect and disregarded if the server cannot arrive at a proof by using them. 
   In exemplary embodiments of the invention, the additional assertions provided by a server or a client may only make a partial proof, instead of the whole proof that is necessary for deciding on whether to grant the requested access. For example, a server may decide not to reveal its use policy to any entity. Consequently, the server only supplies additional assertions that enable a client to prove the client&#39;s identity as required by the hidden user policy. For instance, Contosa.com may decide not to reveal the use policy statement  200 . Therefore, Contosa.com requires the exemplary client Parama to prove that it is a gold star member authorized by Fabrikam.com, with the client having no knowledge about the use policy statement  200 . Alternatively, a server is associated with a traditional theorem prover that is subject to the danger of endless computing mentioned previously with theorem proving. To alleviate such a danger, the additional assertions can be used to construct the “difficult” parts of the proof, leaving a simple (and safe) variant of traditional theorem proving to fill in the minor gaps. In such an approach, theorem verification and proving work together to provide a safe and expressive computation of proof. 
   In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the server  102  illustrated in  FIG. 1  also includes an audit component  116 . The audit component  116  logs and saves a resource manager&#39;s reasoning process for granting or not granting a requested access. Information recorded by the audit component  116  may identify the reasoning process and/or the various statements the resource manager processes to arrive at the conclusion. Therefore, the auditing information may reveal not only who accessed the resource, but also why the access was granted. The auditing information is useful for analyzing how the access control system works, who requested a resource, why the request was granted, and how the requests were granted. For example, the audit information may provide that Parama has requested access to a Contosa.com Web service and that the access was granted because Parama was proven to be a gold star member authorized by Fabrikam.com. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the audit information includes the set of additional assertions used. 
     FIG. 6  illustrates an exemplary routine  600  where a server, such as the server  102 , processes an access request and reaches a decision on whether to grant the access request. Specifically, the routine  600  starts by determining whether the server has received an access request. See decision block  602 . If the server has not received an access request, the routine  600  does not proceed further. If the server has received an access request, the routine  600  proceeds to reply with a proposition that a server wants the client sending the access request to prove before granting the client the requested access. See block  604 . The proposition may identify the use policy for the requested resource. The proposition may also include a proof structure that identifies the relationships among multiple use policy statements and any variable in these use policy statements. The proposition may further include additional assertions that instruct the client on how to substantiate the proof structure. For example, the additional assertions may suggest to a client how to satisfy a condition in a use policy statement and/or to find a specific value for a variable in a use policy statement. 
   The routine  600  then waits to receive a proof from the client in response to the proposition. The routine  600  determines whether it has received such a proof. See decision block  606 . If the answer to decision block  606  is NO, the routine  600  proceeds no further. If the routine  600  receives a proof from the client, the routine  600  proceeds to examine the proof. See block  608 . In examining the received proof, the routine  600  determines whether the proof is correct. See decision block  610 . A correct proof demonstrates that the client has the right to access the requested resource and that the proof constitutes true statements. If the answer to decision block  610  is YES, meaning that the received proof is correct, the routine  600  proceeds to grant the access request. See block  614 . On the other hand, if the answer to decision block  610  is NO, meaning the received proof is incorrect, the routine  600  denies the access request. See block  612 . The routine  600  then terminates. 
     FIG. 7  illustrates an exemplary routine  700  where a client seeks permission from a server to access a resource of the server. Specifically, the routine  700  starts by determining whether the client wants to access a resource of a server. See decision block  702 . If the answer is NO, the routine  700  does not proceed further. If the client wants to access a resource of a server, the routine  700  sends an access request to the server. See block  704 . The routine  700  then waits to receive a proposition from the server. The routine  700  determines if a proposition has been received. See decision block  706 . If the answer is NO, the routine  700  does not proceed further. If the client does receive a proposition from the server, the routine  700  proceeds to construct a proof, according to the proposition. See block  708 . The proof includes data and logical steps that satisfy the requirements specified in the proposition. If the proposition contains additional assertions that instruct how to construct the proof, the proof will be constructed in accordance with the additional assertions. In the case that the received proposition does not contain additional assertions, the constructed proof includes credential statements that identify who the client is. The constructed proof may also include additional assertions that instruct the server on how to use the supplied credential statements to arrive at a decision on whether to grant the access request. The routine  700  then sends the constructed proof to the server. See block  710 . The routine  700  ends. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, if the client knows beforehand what the server needs in order to make a decision on an access request, when sending the access request to the server, the client also supplies the necessary credential statements and additional assertions. As a result, the server has no need to send the proposition. 
   While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.