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Trust structures

Denotational and operational semantics

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Abstract

A general formal model for trust in dynamic networks is presented. The model is based on the trust structures of Carbone, Nielsen and Sassone: a domain theoretic generalisation of Weeks’ framework for credential based trust management systems, e.g., KeyNote and SPKI. Collections of mutually referring trust policies (so-called “webs” of trust) are given a precise meaning in terms of an abstract domain-theoretic semantics. A complementary concrete operational semantics is provided using the well-known I/O-automaton model. The operational semantics is proved to adhere to the abstract semantics, effectively providing a distributed algorithm allowing principals to compute the meaning of a “web” of trust policies. Several techniques allowing sound and efficient distributed approximation of the abstract semantics are presented and proved correct.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BRICS, University of Aarhus, IT-Parken, Aabogade, 34, DK-8200, Aarhus, Denmark

    Karl Krukow & Mogens Nielsen

Authors
  1. Karl Krukow
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  2. Mogens Nielsen
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Correspondence to Karl Krukow.

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BRICS: Basic Research in Computer Science (www.brics.dk) funded by the Panish National Research Foundation.

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Krukow, K., Nielsen, M. Trust structures. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 6, 153–181 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-007-0014-1

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