Secure information sharing for grid computing

Computational grids require secure information sharing between users and resources. Users and resources are members in collaborating organisations, which form a virtual organisation (VO). The heterogeneous distribution of resource providers and requesters require a mechanism to protect shared information and resources from being misused not only by unauthorised individuals but also from authorised individuals. This paper proposes a novel mechanism for controlling information sharing but protection between members in a VO. Content can be shared between members of a VO subject to the VO policy and content owner organisation policy. In the proposed mechanism a member in a VO, who is authorised to access content, is not capable of transferring unprotected content, or protected content and the means for accessing it accidentally or deliberately to others. The VO project managers and collaborating organisations administrators decide which device can access content. Also, when a resource/user leaves the VO the resource/user will not be capable to access the shared information; thereby preventing uncontrolled content leakage. In the proposed solution, we used trusted computing technology to provide a hardware-based root of trust on user devices. Copyright (c) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.