A Calculus for Access Control in Distributed Systems

Martin Abadi, Michael Burrows, Butler Lampson, and Gordon Plotkin

Citation: M. Abadi, M. Burrows, B. Lampson, and G. Plotkin. A calculus for access control in distributed systems. ACM Trans. Programming Languages and Systems, 15, 4 (Oct. 1993), pp 706-734.

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Email: blampson@microsoft.com. This paper is at http://research.microsoft.com.

Abstract:

We study some of the concepts, protocols, and algorithms for access control in distributed systems from a logical perspective. We account for how a principal may come to believe that another principal is making a request, either on his own or on someone else's behalf. We also provide a logical language for access control lists and theories for deciding whether requests should be granted.