Constructing Inference-Proof Belief Mediators

• Published in: Data and Applications Security and Privacy XXIX Vol. 9149; pp. 188 - 203
• Main Authors: Biskup, Joachim, Tadros, Cornelia
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2015; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Attacker simulation; Computer security; Controlled interaction execution; Declassification; Inference control; Information architecture; Information flow control; Integrated belief; Mediation; Multiagent system; Reasoning; Security policy
• ISBN: 3319208098; 9783319208091
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-20810-7_12

An information owner might interact with cooperation partners regarding its belief, which is derived from a collection of heterogeneous data sources and can be changed according to perceptions of the partners’ actions. While interacting, the information owner willingly shares some information with a cooperation partner but also might want to keep selected pieces of information confidential. This requirement should even be satisfied if the partner as an intelligent and only semi-honest attacker attempts to infer hidden information from accessible data, also employing background knowledge. For this problem of inference control, we outline and discuss a solution by means of a sophisticated mediator agent. Based on forming an integrated belief from the underlying data sources, the design adapts and combines known approaches to language-based information flow control and controlled interaction execution for logic-based information systems.