A hierarchical release control policy framework

With increasing information exchange within and between organizations, it becomes increasingly unsatisfactory to depend solely on access control to meet confidentiality and other security needs. To better support the regulation of information flow, this paper presents a release control framework founded on a logical language. Release policies can be specified in a hierarchical manner, in the sense that each user, group, division and organization can specify their own policies, and these are combined by the framework in a manner that enables flexibility within the context of management oversight and regulation. In addition, the language can be used naturally to specify associated provisions (actions that must be undertaken before the release is permitted) and obligations (actions that are agreed will be taken after the release). This paper also addresses issues arising due to the fact that a data object can be released from one entity to another in sequence, along a release path. We show how to test whether a given release specification satisfies given constraints on the release paths it authorizes. We also show how to find the best release paths from release specifications, based on weights specified by users. The factors affecting weights include the subjects through which a path passes, as well as the provisions and obligations that must be met to authorize each step in the path.