Designing a virtual access control configuration protocol for implementation over ISDN and shared-media networks

The encroachment of digital technology into our lifestyle and corporate environment has given rise to the need for individuals to safeguard personal information, and for organizations to protect trade-secret information either stored in computers or transmitted over LANs and WANs. A secure network and communication environment requires the services of encryption mechanisms, user password authentication, and network and user-interface based access control schemes that prevent unauthorised access to application programs and operating systems. While various encryption and authentication security mechanisms have garnered a lot of development effort, access control schemes using a virtual dedicated-media network system have not been fully developed. A dedicated-media network enables the authorization of access based on non-repudiate authenticity of the source. This capability presently cannot be implemented in shared-media networks. The paper introduces a a virtual access control configuration protocol (VACCP) which provides a dynamic security access authorization mechanism. The VACCP performs token-basad access security control to an application's user-interface resources. The VACCP security program is designed to control remote access for both the shared-media and dedicated-media mode of communication. The VACCP security measures are implemented as a network session-layer protocol which governs the access capability and assigns access authorization to each application program on a per-user-basis.