End-to-end security policy description and management for collaborative system

End-to-end security in collaborative system has two inferences: the secure delivery of service and the `due usage' of it. The fulfillment of this requirement involves re-thinking the security policy model of collaborative systems. This paper analyses the factors that impact security in such systems. Based on this, a general architecture is proposed with a collaboration-based policy model specified for managing end-to-end security. An ontology base is introduced to enable different concept levels in policy expression and facilitate interoperability.