A theorem on grid access control

The current grid security research is mainly focused on the authentication of grid systems. A problem to be solved by grid systems is to ensure consistent access control. This problem is complicated because the hosts in a grid computing environment usually span multiple autonomous administrative domains. This paper presents a grid access control model, based on asynchronous automata theory and the classic Bell-LaPadula model. This model is useful to formally study the confidentiality and integrity problems in a grid computing environment. A theorem is proved, which gives the necessary and sufficient conditions to a grid to maintain confidentiality. These conditions are the formalized descriptions of local (node) relations or relationship between grid subjects and node subjects.