Soon, a language to enable nations to share secure information over the web

Washington, March 3 (ANI): A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is developing a standard policy language to achieve flexible and dynamic Web security when information is shared between agencies, countries and organizations.

This research aims to help the Air Force share resources and data with other agencies, both domestic and international, allowing them to dynamically adapt to new or changed policy on either side without code modifications.

One of the primary tools with which the research is built, is Semantic Web technology.

This technology allows the addition of semantics to information; it improves automatic retrieval and facilitates data integration.

"We are creating for the first time a policy interchange language or Interlingua grounded in Semantic Web technologies that will enable a secure exchange of information between entities using different languages to express their security constraints," said Dr. Lalana Kagal from MIT.

The Interlingua will be based on translations that will capture the integral functions and the key characteristics as well as facilitate the translation of commonly used policy languages.

"We would like to see the interchange language become standardized so that there would be widespread use, development of more tools and protocols around it and also possibly its incorporation into Web browsers, commercial applications and databases," she said.

Everyone has been waiting for a standard policy language to solve security issues associated with cross-domain collaboration, however, it is going to be difficult to develop a language that will meet the requirements of every application, domain and service.

However, this research provides an alternate approach that may change that.

"A policy interchange language will allow people to use their own language while still collaborating securely with others," said Kagal. (ANI)