A CSCW-Enabling Integrated Access Control Model and its Application

Abstract

Nowadays open and distributed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems are faced with security challenges due to large numbers of cooperative users, and a mass of valued data resources need to be protected against unauthorized usage, disseminations and share. To this end, role-based collaboration framework and access control approaches have been a focus in recent years, but there lack of a holistic and comprehensive model and visual modeling. We proposed and formalized a CSCW-enabling access control model integrating generic centralized authorization and distributed authority delegation, called IACM (Integrated Access Control Model) for CSCW, based on the cooperative roles and their owned activities. And then, the visual modeling was represented with static and dynamic characteristics, with a goal to narrow the gap of the formalized model and application level. Finally, an application in the collaboration system for equipments manufacture designing was implemented to improve security of the role-based centralized authorization management by using the authorization constraint rules, and to enhance the collaborative capability based on the user-side delegation mechanism, effectively guaranteeing CSCW system security and authorization management efficiency.