Secure Sharing of Tuple Spaces in Ad Hoc Settings

Radu Handorean
Gruia-Catalin Roman

Security is emerging as a growing concern throughout the distributed
computing community.  Typical solutions entail specialized infrastructure
support for authentication, encryption and access control.  Mobile
applications executing over ad hoc wireless networks present designers with
a rahter distinct set of security requirements.  A totoally open setting and
limited resources call for lightweight and highly decentralized security
solutions.  In this paper we propose an approach that relies on extending an
existing coordination model for mobility (LIME).  The need to continue to
offer a very simple model of coordination that assures rapdi software
development led to limiting extensions solely to password protected tuple
spaces and per tuple access control.  Password distribution and security are
relegated to the application realm.  Host level security is ensured by the
middleware design and relies on standard support provided by the Java
system.  Secure interactions among agents across hosts are accomplished by
careful exploitation of the interceptor pattern and the use of standard
encryption.  The paper explains the design strategy used to add security
support in LIME and its implications for the development of mobile
applications over ad hoc networks.