License Server Research Articles

A security scheme of digital rights management based on agent encryption and key distribution in cloud computing

Cloud computing is a convenient and flexible mode of data transmission and sharing. Data security is the biggest challenge today owing to the wide application of cloud computing in various fields. This study proposed a security scheme of digital rights management based on digital license and agent encryption in cloud computing. First, a secure and effective framework of digital rights management was presented, allowing the agent encryption provider (such as centralised data server) to encrypt the data content and the common users to use the data resource based on digital license generated by a license server. The novel scheme could accomplish the privacy protection by permitting anonymous users to request different services from the key server and service provider. The performance analysis showed that the proposed scheme could assure the security and efficiency of data resource, thereby establishing its significance and application value for promoting a widespread application of cloud computing.

Privacy sustainability scheme in cloud environment

Usually in cloud computing, all the administrations are being provided through internet. From past few years, we have observed that expanding favouritism of putting away and deploying data on the cloud. Saving privacy of individual information has been turned an essential and squeezing issue while offering privacy of individual information. In this paper a scheme that guarantees protection supportability along with sustainability in cloud environment is proposed. In this proposed work, information records are transferred by the client to the cloud by method for a secure key distribution which is consolidated by a key server and license server. We have also introduced an effective and efficient advanced digital rights management (DRM) scheme that permits client who owns the data to outsource the encrypted data file to a centralized content server. It also allows clients to access the data through a license issued by license server. Further, we have applied encryption principles to guarantee protection and security of transferred document or data. The proposed scheme prevents the attempts of malicious attacks made by an unauthorized user along with providing a secure key distribution.

Multi-User and Real-Time Flexible Remote Laboratory Architecture for Collaborative and Cooperative Pedagogical Scenarios

An advanced multi-user and realtime INTernational-REmote-LABoratory (INT-RE-LAB) architecture is presented in this paper. The INT-RE-LAB is developed and localized in four different host universities. The software part is based on the use of a free license server Node.js written in JavaScript. It offers lightweight Html/JavaScript clients. The integration of socket.io module enables a real-time operation mode of this Client/Server communication. Associated with hardware architecture, collaborative remote manipulation of resources is enabling in the same way as a chat communication used in Internet. Each remote action performed by one user is instantaneously visible in other users’web interfaces. The hardware part includes a mini-computer that executes node.js server and hosts MySQL. Mini-computer “Pcduino” directly controls specifically developed relays circuit. It offers the required flexibility and reusability for current remote laboratories. Different redundant remote practical works integrate the INT-RE-LAB have been developed for the new EOLES “Electronics and Optic e-Learning for Embedded Systems” bachelor.

Trusted License Distribution System Based on IPSec VPN for Mobile DRM

With the rapid development of mobile applications, DRM systems used for mobile terminals and wireless environment become popular. However, the present DRM schemes are not fit for mobile applications because of the new security problems in wireless environment and the limitations of mobile terminals. In this paper, a trusted license distribution system based on IPSec VPN and its correlative issues are presented. This system supports DRM clients to build IPSec VPN connection based on trusted authentication with DRM license server, and obtains license through secure tunnel. Implementation and testing indicate that the security and efficiency of the proposed scheme can reach the requirement of the mobile DRM.

Attribute based DRM scheme with dynamic usage control in cloud computing

In order to achieve fine-grained access control in cloud computing, existing digital rights management (DRM) schemes adopt attribute-based encryption as the main encryption primitive. However, these schemes suffer from inefficiency and cannot support dynamic updating of usage rights stored in the cloud. In this paper, we propose a novel DRM scheme with secure key management and dynamic usage control in cloud computing. We present a secure key management mechanism based on attribute-based encryption and proxy re-encryption. Only the users whose attributes satisfy the access policy of the encrypted content and who have effective usage rights can be able to recover the content encryption key and further decrypt the content. The attribute based mechanism allows the content provider to selectively provide fine-grained access control of contents among a set of users, and also enables the license server to implement immediate attribute and user revocation. Moreover, our scheme supports privacy-preserving dynamic usage control based on additive homomorphic encryption, which allows the license server in the cloud to update the users' usage rights dynamically without disclosing the plaintext. Extensive analytical results indicate that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient.

Towards an Efficient and Secure Online Digital Rights Management Scheme in Cloud Computing

Streaming media is widely adopted by thousands of applications in cloud computing, how to effectively protect streaming media contents is a new challenge. In this paper, we propose an efficient online digital rights management (DRM) scheme supporting dynamic license in cloud computing. The content provider encrypts media content and outsources the encrypted content to cloud storage, while the user acquires dynamic license from the license server and consumes the streaming media content from the cloud storage. Further, we present a secure key distribution protocol based on proxy re-encryption, which protects the confidentiality of content encryption key, and reduces the work of key management in the cloud, and also supports domain key to realize user domain management. In addition, we develop a prototype system with Google cloud storage APIs based on the proposed scheme, and the implementation and comparison results show that the proposed scheme satisfies the requirements of online media content protection in cloud computing.

A privacy enabling content distribution framework for digital rights management

Digital rights management (DRM) technology has been employed to prevent illegal content consumption/redistribution. However, to achieve secure and authorised content distribution, DRM systems lose flexibility and create a serious threat to privacy. Additionally, traditional DRM models are two level distribution systems, which do not facilitate scalable content distribution. In this paper, we will propose a new content distribution framework for multiparty multilevel DRM system by employing the facility location technique. In it, authentication and payment is handled by the distributor while license server generates the license. This alleviates the license server workload and provides the opportunity to the distributor to create offers, promotions and discounts to promote the content. The adoption of independent payment collection and license generation authorities provides the way to monitor the correctness of content sell. Furthermore, the use of ring signature and pseudonym token in content distribution, protect users’ privacy without violating accountability parameters.

Secure and privacy-preserving DRM scheme using homomorphic encryption in cloud computing

Cloud computing provides a convenient way of content trading and sharing. In this paper, we propose a secure and privacy-preserving digital rights management (DRM) scheme using homomorphic encryption in cloud computing. We present an efficient digital rights management framework in cloud computing, which allows content provider to outsource encrypted contents to centralized content server and allows user to consume contents with the license issued by license server. Further, we provide a secure content key distribution scheme based on additive homomorphic probabilistic public key encryption and proxy re-encryption. The provided scheme prevents malicious employees of license server from issuing the license to unauthorized user. In addition, we achieve privacy preserving by allowing users to stay anonymous towards the key server and service provider. The analysis and comparison results indicate that the proposed scheme has high efficiency and security.

SLA-based management of software licenses as web service resources in distributed computing infrastructures

Until recently the use of applications requiring a software license for execution was quite limited in distributed environments. Due to the mandatory centralised control of license usage at application runtime, e.g. heartbeat control by the license server running at the home site of a user, traditional software licensing practices are not suitable especially when the distributed computing infrastructure stretches across administrative domains. In this paper we present a novel approach for managing software licenses as web service resources in distributed service oriented environments. Licenses become mobile objects, which may travel to the environment where required to authorise the execution of a license protected application. A first implementation has been realised for dynamic Grid environments in the European SmartLM project co-funded by the European Commission. The SmartLM solution decouples authorisation for license usage from authorisation for application execution. All authorisations are expressed as and guaranteed by Service Level Agreements. We will present the core technology, discuss various security aspects and how they are addressed in the SmartLM prototype, and present the evaluation of the prototype through a number of usage scenarios. Finally, we will give an outlook on specific issues and current work extending the solution to Clouds and service based systems in general.

The Sicilian Grid Infrastructure for High Performance Computing

The conjugation of High Performance Computing (HPC) and Grid paradigm with applications based on commercial software is one among the major challenges of today e-Infrastructures. Several research communities from either industry or academia need to run high parallel applications based on licensed software over hundreds of CPU cores; a satisfactory fulfillment of such requests is one of the keys for the penetration of this computing paradigm into the industry world and sustainability of Grid infrastructures. This problem has been tackled in the context of the PI2S2 project that created a regional e-Infrastructure in Sicily, the first in Italy over a regional area. Present article will describe the features added in order to integrate an HPC facility into the PI2S2 Grid infrastructure, the adoption of the InifiniBand low-latency net connection, the gLite middleware extended to support MPI/MPI2 jobs, the newly developed license server and the specific scheduling policy adopted. Moreover, it will show the results of some relevant use cases belonging to Computer Fluid-Dynamics (Fluent, OpenFOAM), Chemistry (GAMESS), Astro-Physics (Flash) and Bio-Informatics (ClustalW)).

Playing Inside the Black Box Using Dynamic Instrumentation to Create Security Holes

Programs running on insecure or malicious hosts have often been cited as ripe targets for security attacks. The enabling technology for these attacks is the ability to easily analyze and control the running program. Dynamic instrumentation provides the necessary technology for this analysis and control. As embodied in the DynInst API library, dynamic instrumentation allows easy construction of tools that can: (1) inspect a running process, obtaining structural information about the program; (2) control the execution of the program, (3) cause new libraries to be dynamically loaded into the process’ address space; (4) splice new code sequences into the running program and remove them; and (5) replace individual call instructions or entire functions. With this technology, we have provided two demonstrations of its use: exposing vulnerabilities in a distributed scheduling system (Condor), and bypassing access to a license server by a word processor (Framemaker). The first demonstration shows the danger of remote execution of a job on a system of unknown pedigree, and the second demonstration shows the vulnerabilities of software license protection schemes. While these types of vulnerabilities have long been speculated, we show how, with the right tool (the DynInst API), they can be easily accomplished. Along with this discussion of vulnerabilities, we also discuss strategies for compensating for them. Programs in execution have long been considered to be immutable objects. Object code and libraries are emitted by the compiler, linked and then executed; any changes to the program require revisiting the compile or link steps. In contrast, we consider a running program to be an object that can be examined, instrumented, and re-arranged on the fly. The DynInst API provides a portable library for tool builders to construct tools that operate on a running program. Where previous tools might have required a special compiler, linker, or run-time library, tools based on DynInst can operate directly on unmodified binary programs during execution. In this papers, we show how this technology can be used to subvert system security. The discussions will be based on two example cases: exposing vulnerabilities in a distributed scheduling system (Condor), and bypassing access to a license server by a word processor (Framemaker). For the Condor study, we create “lurker” processes that can be left latent on a host in the Condor pool. These lurker processes lie in wait for subsequent Condor jobs to arrive on the infected host. The lurker will then use Dyninst to attach to the newly-arrived victim job and take control. Once in control, the lurker can cause the victim job to make requests back to its home host, causing it execute a wide variety of system calls. For the license-server study, we constructed a collection of Dyninst-based tools that allowed us to understand the control flow within the application (Framemaker) program. As a result, we were able to detect and remove Framemaker’s contact with the license server. In addition, there are frequent checks within Framemaker to see if it has cached a valid license credential. Using our Dyninst-based tools, we were able to locate and neutralize these checks. For each of these studies, we provide some suggestions as to how to make them less vulnerable to attack.

PLAYING INSIDE THE BLACK BOX: USING DYNAMIC INSTRUMENTATION TO CREATE SECURITY HOLES

Programs running on insecure or malicious hosts have often been cited as ripe targets for security attacks. The enabling technology for these attacks is the ability to easily analyze and control the running program. Dynamic instrumentation provides the necessary technology for this analysis and control. As embodied in the DynInst API library, dynamic instrumentation allows easy construction of tools that can: (1) inspect a running process, obtaining structural information about the program; (2) control the execution of the program, (3) cause new libraries to be dynamically loaded into the process' address space; (4) splice new code sequences into the running program and remove them; and (5) replace individual call instructions or entire functions. With this technology, we have provided two demonstrations of its use: exposing vulnerabilities in a distributed scheduling system (Condor), and bypassing access to a license server by a word processor (Framemaker). The first demonstration shows the danger of remote execution of a job on a system of unknown pedigree, and the second demonstration shows the vulnerabilities of software license protection schemes. While these types of vulnerabilities have long been speculated, we show how, with the right tool (the DynInst API), they can be easily accomplished. Along with this discussion of vulnerabilities, we also discuss strategies for compensating for them.