Users of Antigone will be able to specify security policies for group communication along several dimensions. Antigone will automatically configure efficient communication protocols that implement the specified policies. Support for evolving security policies in highly dynamic environments will be investigated. A range of applications will be demonstrated, showing the applicability of Antigone to addressing needs of systems with different security policies. The first step is to classify the group security policy dimensions and decide which ones are critical to support.
Next step is to design a domain-independent language for specifying security policy requirements.
The policy specification language should be designed to be extensible to meet emerging requirements and security mechanisms. A critical Antigone middleware layer is the policy enforcement layer. This layer enforces the security policy through the composition and configuration of security mechanisms, implemented as micro-protocols. Each mechanism must be directed to behave so as to be consistent with the group policy specifications. The value of this approach will be demonstrated through a range of real- world applications and environments.