Ensuring Distributed Accountability For Data Sharing In The Cloud

Ensuring Distributed Accountability For Data Sharing In The Cloud

Abstract:

Cloud computing enables highly scalable services to be easily consumed over 

the Internet on an as-needed basis. A major feature of the cloud services is 

that users’ data are usually processed remotely in unknown machines that 

users do not own or operate. While enjoying the convenience brought by this 

new emerging technology, users’ fears of losing control of their own data 

(particularly, financial and health data) can become a significant barrier to the 

wide adoption of cloud services. To address this problem, here, we propose a 

novel highly decentralized information accountability framework to keep track 

of the actual usage of the users’ data in the cloud. In particular, we propose 

an object-centered approach that enables enclosing our logging mechanism 

together with users’ data and policies. We leverage the JAR programmable 

capabilities to both create a dynamic and traveling object, and to ensure that 

any access to users’ data will trigger authentication and automated logging 

local to the JARs. To strengthen user’s control, we also provide distributed 

auditing mechanisms. We provide extensive experimental studies that 

demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Problems on existing system:

First, data handling can be outsourced by the direct cloud service provider (CSP) to other  entities in the cloud and theses entities can also delegate the tasks to others, and so on.

Second, entities are allowed to join and leave the cloud in a flexible manner. 

As a result, data handling in the cloud goes through a complex and dynamic 

hierarchical service chain which does not exist in conventional environments.

Fig. Overview of the cloud information accountability framework