Information control in networked discrete event systems

Abstract

How to control information exchange among different users is an important problem in networked systems with many users/agents. Generally speaking, there are several considerations in control of information exchange in a networked system, including (1) to ensure a friend user has sufficient information to perform its tasks, (2) to deprive an adversary user its information to perform its tasks, (3) to minimize information exchange among friend users so that the risk of information leaking is minimized, and (4) to maximize information broadcasted to all users to achieve maximum transparency. In this paper, we investigate the information control problems in the framework of discrete event systems. Based on the problem at hand, we divide users in a networked system into two or more groups. Users in the same group are consider as friends and users in a different group are consider as adversaries. Several information control problems are investigated and solved using a systematic and rigorous approach. Methods are developed to design controllers that send minimum information to its friends to help them to perform their tasks and broadcast maximum information without helping its adversaries.