Secure Data Flow in a Calculus for Context Awareness

Abstract. We present a Mobile-Ambients-based process calculus to describe context-aware computing in a Ubiquitous Computing setting. In our calculus, computing agents can provide and discover contextual information and are owners of security policies. Simple access control to contextual information is not sufficient to insure confidentiality in Global Computing, therefore our security policies regulate agents ’ rights to the provision and discovery of contextual information over distributed flows of actions. A type system enforcing security policies by a combination of static and dynamic checking of mobile agents is provided, together with its type soundness. Key words: Ubiquitous Computing, Mobile Ambients, context awareness, security, type system