Supporting Virtual Organizations Using Attribute-Based Encryption in Named Data Networking

This paper investigates the use of Named Data Networks (NDNs) and Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) to support federations of computing resources managed using the Virtual Organization (VO) concept. The NDN architecture focuses on fetching structurally named and secured pieces of application data, instead of pushing packets to host IP addresses. The VO concept allows management of federations across different administrative domains and enable secure collaborations. We show how hierarchicallly structured namespaces can be used to manage sets of named resources from different VO sites, and make them available to different VO members, based on their authorization attributes. For this initial investigation, we use a Two-Tier VO model and develop the associated VO data naming schema. We present an example, discuss outstanding issues, and identify future work.