Ismene: Provisioning and Policy Reconciliation in Secure Group Communication

Group communication systems increasingly provide security services. However, in practice, the use of such systems is complicated by the divergent requirements and abilities of group members. In this paper, we define a policy language called Ismene that directs the provisioning of security-related resources at member sites. The communication service is defined through a reconciliation of a group policy and member’s local policies into a security configuration. Group authorization and access control appropriate for the operating conditions and session configuration are also defined within the policy. The use of Ismene policies to define security is illustrated through an extended example of a group application built on the prototype Ismene framework.