Language Mechanisms for Protecting Persistent Data

Michael Hollins
John Rosenberg
Department of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, Australia.
mickh@cs.usyd.edu.au
johnr@cs.usyd.edu.au

Michael Hitchens
Department of Computing, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, Sydney, Australia.
m.hitchens@nepean.uws.edu.au

Abstract

Persistent systems may consist of large volumes of data which have usually been constructed over time by a community of users. As such the data is valuable and needs to be protected against deliberate and accidental misuse. This paper prese nts language mechanisms which support the concise expression of protection requi rements for persistent data. The mechanisms are present in the Mozzie object-ori ented persistent programming language. The language supports the dynamic control of access permissions to objects. The mechanisms also make it possible to provide a means by which access may be g ained to the encapsulated data of persistent objects in a controlled fashion. Th e need to be able to gain such access is discussed along with several examples.

Conference Home Page