Andrew C. Myers Barbara Liskov
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139
This paper presents a new model for controlling information flow in systems with mutual distrust and decentralized authority. The model allows users to share information with distrusted code (e.g., downloaded applets), yet still control how that code disseminates the shared information to others. The model improves on existing multilevel security models by allowing users to declassify information in a decentralized way, and by improving support for fine-grained data sharing. The paper also shows how static program analysis can be used to certify proper information flows in this model and to avoid most run-time information flow checks.
Published in the Proceedings of the 16th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, Saint-Malo, France, 5-8 October 1997.
This research was supported in part by DARPA Contract N00014-91-J-4136, monitored by the Office of Naval Research, and in part by DARPA Contract F30602-96-C-0303, monitored by USAF Rome Laboratory.
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