Vigil / Secure Centaurus

January 1, 2000 - May 1, 2004

Vigil / Secure Centaurus is an ongoing research project on smart home / smart office scenario.

The goal of the project is to demonstrate a smart office environment where mobile user can use her handheld device to ad-hocly operate over all resources/services embedded in the environment. These services include doors, lights, music, powerpoint presentations, printers and various information services. A user can access these services through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and IR enabled handheld devices as well as using a voice command.

Additionally, the goal of the project is to use distributed trust management to provide a solution to security and trust problems in mobile pervasive environments. The current mobile ad-hoc environments provide a limited amount of security in terms of encryption and authentication, usually as part of the particular wireless technology. These solutions do not address the important issue of trust, which is required to enable secure interaction among various devices in ad-hoc environments. We have designed Vigil, which uses existing security methods along with distributed trust, to enable authentication and access control in pervasive environments. Vigil complements SPKI and Role Based Access Control with trust management. Every space, whether it is a room, a part of a room, building etc. is managed by an environment controller. The controller enforces a security policy which consists of rules for authenticating users and assigning domain-specific roles. Every resource in the space registers with the controller and trusts the controller to manage its access control. When a user enters the space, she/he registers with the controller using her/his certificates. These certificates are validated by the controller using certain rules. Based on her/his credentials, the user is assigned a set of roles and is given access rights associated with those roles. These are basic role based access rights. Access rights of users are dynamic and can be changed by delegations and revocations without affecting the roles of the user.

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Faculty

  1. Anupam Joshi

Principal Investigator

  1. Lalana Kagal

Publications

2004

  1. H. Chen, T. Finin, A. Joshi, F. Perich, D. Chakraborty, and L. Kagal, "Intelligent Agents Meet the Semantic Web in Smart Spaces", Article, IEEE Internet Computing, November 2004, 5565 downloads, 156 citations.
  2. H. Chen, F. Perich, D. Chakraborty, T. Finin, and A. Joshi, "Intelligent Agents Meet Semantic Web in a Smart Meeting Room", InProceedings, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents & Multi Agent Systems (AAMAS 2004), July 2004, 6036 downloads, 81 citations.

2003

  1. L. Kagal, T. Finin, and A. Joshi, "A Policy Language for A Pervasive Computing Environment", InCollection, IEEE 4th International Workshop on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks, June 2003, 5090 downloads, 341 citations.

2002

  1. L. Kagal, V. Korolev, S. Avancha, A. Joshi, T. Finin, and Y. Yesha, "Centaurus : An Infrastructure for Service Management in Ubiquitous Computing", Article, ACM Wireless Networks Journal, November 2002, 2849 downloads, 19 citations.
  2. L. Kagal, F. Perich, A. Joshi, and T. Finin, "A Security Architecture Based on Trust Management for Pervasive Computing Systems", InProceedings, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, October 2002, 5754 downloads, 30 citations.
  3. L. Kagal, F. Perich, A. Joshi, Y. Yesha, and T. Finin, "Vigil: Providing Trust for Enhanced Security in Pervasive Systems", TechReport, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, August 2002, 5502 downloads, 11 citations.

2001

  1. A. Cedilnik, L. Kagal, F. Perich, and A. Joshi, "A Secure Infrastructure for Service Discovery and Access in Pervasive Computing", TechReport, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, August 2001, 4541 downloads.
  2. L. Kagal, V. Korolev, H. Chen, A. Joshi, and T. Finin, "Centaurus : A Framework for Intelligent Services in a Mobile Environment", InProceedings, International Workshop of Smart Appliances and Wearable Computing at the 21st International Conference of Distributed Computing Systems, April 2001, 6398 downloads, 57 citations.