WiseShare: A collaborative environment for knowledge sharing governed by ABAC policies

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an attribute based access control (ABAC) approach for safely sharing knowledge in a collaborative environment. Indeed, existing similar systems facilitate collaboration at the risk to convey doubtful information and sometimes serve as a gate to vandalism. Our system called “WiseShare” ensures collaboration while focusing on the reliability of the broadcasted content. To achieve this goal, we precisely express the requirements needed to control the shared information. In addition, we define a formal framework for specifying security policies governing contributions requests according to user profile. We present also a prototype implementing the functionalities of our system. In our approach, a new user has limited rights. On an ongoing basis, if he demonstrates his ability to produce good contributions, he gains new privileges. Conversely, if he often generates contributions with a questionable content, he loses the held privileges. Therefore, granting user requests depends closely on his previous behavior (the history). Indeed, our system encourages users to adopt a responsible attitude by focusing on the reliability of the content of their contributions instead of their frequency. Consequently, WiseShare permits to significantly minimize clumsy and malicious actions.