Access control for secure information sharing in smart content spaces

Sophisticated mobile devices are becoming more compact, powerful and cheap to produce, leading to the implementation of smart applications that enable users to create and share large amounts of data on the go. Services such as Wi-Fi Direct support device-to-device communication, enabling peer-to-peer networks called smart spaces that support the sharing of information and resources between peers. In line with current research on personalization of the security of smart spaces, this paper introduces the concept of a proximity-based local personal smart space (LPSS) that presents new security challenges such as secure content sharing. An evaluation of current research on access control for smart spaces highlights that personalized context-based access control can provide better control over shared content. A local personal smart space access control framework is proposed focusing on the very nature of local personal smart space environments, namely, the enforcement of access control using personal preferences of users that are defined using policies. A prototype is presented that implements the access control model. Finally, the paper is concluded with some insight into future improvements.