Declarative Security

In this paper, we introduce the novel concept of a secure interface deenition compiler (a \se-curity" compiler, for short). We show how interface designers can declare an application's security requirements as part of the interface deenition process, and how a security compiler can automatically generate code that implements security requirements in client stubs and server skeletons. We propose extending interface deenition languages to support security requirement declarations, and we argue that security requirement declarations inherently \belong" in interface deenitions. Just as declarative languages such as SQL have provided application developers a simpliied way to retrieve data from databases, we believe that SIDLs (Secure Interface Deenition Languages) will give application developers a simpliied way to incorporate security into their applications. Finally, we propose several keywords as extensions to CORBA's interface deenition language (IDL) that allow interface designers to declare security requirements of interfaces, and we discuss how support for these keywords can be implemented in existing CORBA systems.