Research Overview

With the evolution of large-scale distributed systems, connection to the outside world via the Internet, and the proliferation of portable computing devices, higher priority is being given to concerns about the security of distributed systems. The era of pervasive computing will push computing power into many of the nooks and crannies of our lives. There may already be widespread use of wireless PDAs and laptops, but wearable computers and active spaces are just around the corner. These advances will begin to challenge our notion of what a computer is as computing devices become less pronounced and more integrated within our environment. A critical aspect of this new paradigm will be the way security is handled. In particular, we aim to provide solutions that enable adminstrators and service providers to deploy, specify and enforce access control over resources and services in these environments, while also preserving the privacy of users as much as possible.

Projects

• P³: Privacy Preservation for Pervasive Spaces
• Access Control for Dynamic, Mobile Environments
• CAMAS: A Citizen Awareness System for Crisis Mitigation
• Composable Middleware for Open, Distributed Systems (CompOSE|Q)
• Database As a Service (DAS)