Enforcing the unenforceable

  • Authors:
  • Peter Y. A. Ryan

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Security Protocols
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

A security policy is intended to regulate the behaviour of a socio-technical system (computers, networks and humans) in such a way as to ensure that certain properties are maintained or goals achieved. Two problems arise here: regulating the behaviour of humans is non-trivial and, secondly, many security goals are not ”enforceable” in the Schneider sense,[1]. Thus, security policy mechanisms inevitably involve approximations and trade-offs. We discuss the theoretical and practical limitations on what is technically enforceable and argue for the need for models that encompass social as well as technical enforcement mechanisms.