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Context-Aware and Dynamic Role-Based Access Control Using Blockchain

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Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2020)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1151))

Abstract

Trust and risk issue in distributed environments represent today an important research topic. Access Control Systems are mainly used in security to control access to resources. Access control policies are used to express the rights of users to access resources. In this paper, the Blockchain is used as a tool for location-aware Role-based access control system to provide dynamic and auditable access control policies. In the proposed approach, user-role relationships are publicly visible on the Blockchain. On the other hand, the resource owners send transactions to the Blockchain to manage the relationship between roles and permissions. The location server is associated with an Ethereum account which monitors the location information of the users and dynamically changes the active role of the user by sending transaction to the LRBAC smart contract. The proposed approach achieves auditability, preventing the data provider or third parties from falsely denying the access rights granted by RBAC policies. We deployed the RBAC smart contract on the Ethereum Rinkeby testnet and the experimental results show that the proposed approach is feasible.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Mohsin Ur Rahman, Barbara Guidi & Laura Ricci

  2. Department of Philology, Literature, and Linguistics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Fabrizio Baiardi

Authors
  1. Mohsin Ur Rahman
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  2. Barbara Guidi
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  3. Fabrizio Baiardi
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  4. Laura Ricci
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohsin Ur Rahman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Faculty of Information Engineering, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Fukuoka, Japan

    Leonard Barolli

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples “Frederico II”, Naples, Italy

    Flora Amato

  3. Department of Political Science, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta, Italy

    Francesco Moscato

  4. Faculty of Business Administration, Rissho University, Tokyo, Japan

    Tomoya Enokido

  5. Department of Advanced Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan

    Makoto Takizawa

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Rahman, M.U., Guidi, B., Baiardi, F., Ricci, L. (2020). Context-Aware and Dynamic Role-Based Access Control Using Blockchain. In: Barolli, L., Amato, F., Moscato, F., Enokido, T., Takizawa, M. (eds) Advanced Information Networking and Applications. AINA 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1151. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44041-1_122

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