An access control framework for multi-user collaborative environments

Abstract

A vital component of any application or environment is security, and yet this is often one of the lower priorities, losing out to performance and functionality issues, if it is considered at all. This paper considers a spatial approach to enabling, understanding and managing access control that is generally applicable across a range of collaborative environments and applications. Access control is governed according to the space within which subjects and objects reside, and the ability to traverse space to get close to an object. We present a framework that enables the SPACE access model [4], previously presented as an access model solely for collaborative virtual environments, to be applied across a number of collaborative systems. This framework is exemplified through mappings of the model to 3D and 2D collaborative environments, namely Spline [ 11, TeamRooms [ 191 and Orbit [ 161. One particularly interesting feature of the model is the way in which it handles group access by considering how group credentials are determined. These credentials are presented to the model in the usual manner. We conclude by presenting some limitations of our approach, and workarounds.

Survey on Access Control for Community-Centered Collaborative Systems

“…However, TMAC does not account for the interpersonal relationships among team members, limiting its applicability to community-centered environments. Similarly to TMAC, Bullock and Benford [1999] present an access control mechanism that aims to support people working together in collaborative teams. The authors investigate the group access functionality within the SPACE access control model [Bullock and Benford 1997] and, in particular, define a number of policies that constrain the access rights of a group of users based on the properties of the team as a whole.…”

A Flexible Access Control Model for Distributed Collaborative Editors

“…Users have to authenticate again to obtain new roles. Spatial Access Control (SAC) has been proposed to solve this problem of role migration within a session [2]. Instead of splitting users into groups as in RBAC, SAC divides the collaborative environment into abstract spaces.…”

Security of runtime extensible virtual environments

“…These areas include the following: VE access control (vid. [3] and [19]); authentication and integrity using certificates and password schemas; and privacy through the use of symmetric and asymmetric encryption. Research in the area of watermark technology for two-dimensional images and three-dimensional models has developed well and may hold promise for application in other areas of data integrity (vid.…”