Applicability of Temporal Data Models to Query Multilevel Security Databases: A Case Study

In a multilevel security database there are multiple beliefs about a given real world object. The ability of a database model to accommodate multiple beliefs is termed polyinstantiation in the multilevel security literature. In this paper we remark that in an abstract sense polyinstantiation is a priori present in all models for temporal and spatial databases. In particular we investigate the applicability of the parametric model for temporal data to query multilevel security data and, as a case study, compare it to a model for multilevel security given by Winslett, Smith, and Qian. Disciplines Databases and Information Systems | Information Security | Systems Architecture This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cs_techreports/86 Page 20 [LDS90] Lunt, T. F., D. E. Denning, R. R. Schell, M. Heckman, and W.R. Shockley. The Seaview security model. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol 16, pp 593-607, 1990. [NG92] Nair, Sunil and Shashi K. Gadia. Algebraic optimization in a relational model for temporal databases, Proc. First International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pp 169-176, 1992. [PMP94] Pissinou, Niki, Kia Makki, and E. K. Park. Towards a framework for integrating secure models and temporal databases. Proc. of Third International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, 1994, pp 280-287. [SW92] Smith K. and M. Winslett. Entity modeling in the MLS relational model. Proceedings of Eighteenth VLDB, pp 199-210, 1992. [Ta+93] Tansel, Abdullah, et al, Eds. Temporal Databases: Theory, Design, and Implementation. Benjamin/Cummings, Redwood City, California, 1993, pp 28-66. [WSQ94] Winslett, Marianne, Kenneth Smith, and Xialei Qian. Formal query languages for secure relational databases. ACM Transactions on Database Systems, Vol 19, 1994, pp 626-662.