Modeling Delegation of Rights in a simplified XACML with Haskell

[Frank Siebenlist <franks@mcs.anl.gov>]

Dear colleagues,

At the last F2F, we had extensive discussions about how delegation of rights and 
the associated admin of policy could be implemented in xacml.

At the very end of the F2F, we concluded that it was best to come up with a more 
"formal" way of describing the different ideas, such that it is easier to reason 
about and to discuss the underlying model.

After Polar came out with his "The Formal Semantics of XACML" paper, he 
convinced me that the use of a pure functional language may be a good way to 
explain and discuss new xacml language features, like delegation.

So, I started to model a subset of xacml in haskell, and to see how delegation 
schemes would be rendered in that environment.

You can find the current snapshot of that work at:
http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~franks/haskell/XacmlDelegationHaskell0.html

I realize that most of you are new to haskell, but my hope is that because I 
myself am a haskell novice also, that I could pull some of you along the same 
learning curve that is reflected in the document. I've tried to add complexity 
to the model gradually in stages as I was trying to get my mind around the 
problem. So, if your mind works a little like mine, you may be able to learn 
with me. If your have a normal mind, then you may be out of luck ;-)

Please note that nothing is set in stone, there are still some issues to work 
out, and suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Enjoy, Frank.

-- 
Frank Siebenlist               franks@mcs.anl.gov
The Globus Alliance - Argonne National Laboratory