A scratch-based graphical policy editor for XACML

This paper proposes a policy-maker-friendly editor for the extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) based on the programming language Scratch. Scratch is a blocks-based programming language designed for teaching children programming, which allows users to build programs like a puzzle. We take this concept one step further with an XACML policy editor based on the graphic programming elements of Scratch implemented in Smalltalk. This allows for aiding the user on how to build policies by grouping blocks and operators that fit together and also indicating which blocks that will stick together. It simplifies building the XACML policies while still having an XACML “feel” of the graphic policies.