6th European Conference - Academic Conferences

Labelling
Label creation
Information lifecycle
Management
Release mechanism
Labelling
Verification
Label translation
Label creation
Disseminate
release information
Harm Schotanus et al.
PKI
Labelling
Trusted OS
CA
Smartcard auth.
Certificate Valid
Secure binding
Label translation
Label creation
…
Secure login
HAP
Integrity
protection
PKI
Release mechanism
Labelling
Trusted OS
CA
Smartcard auth.
Certificate Valid
Certificate valid
Authorisation
Verification
Secure binding
Label translation
Label creation
…
Secure login
HAP
Secure labelled
release
Figure 7: An incremental approach to introduce labelling
Each functional building block can consist of several components which have to be implemented
depending on the functionality we require. When these requirements increase additional functional
building blocks are required and the complexity of the building blocks may increase as more
components are added. As such we have established an incremental approach in which we add
complexity in small steps but in the mean time we create new useful functionality.
The first basic step to use labelling is to implement a system which can create labels and utilise these
labels in an (existing or new) Information Management System to manage information. When all the
processes and procedures are in place and people are used to work with this new form of information
management it can be decided to extend the labelling with more functionality. A next step can be to
implement a release mechanism which can decide to translate internal labels into external labels and
share these labels with other domains. To ensure the integrity of the data-object and metadata-object
PKI and Trusted OS functionality can be added. At the end all four functional building blocks are in
place resulting in a “secure labelled release” application.
Each step goes along with other advantages such as reduced complexity, people have time to
experience and use new functionality, processes and procedures will change incremented and an
better acceptance of the functionality in the organisation.
4. Conclusion
Labelling is an important step to provide the technical means to realise a NEC environment and
implement a duty-to-share mechanism. Not only does it allow the sharing of information, it also
realises a basis so that the information owner can remain in control of which information is shared.
Creation of labels in itself is not a difficult process, nor is the validation of the correctness of such a
label. Most of the means for these are already in place e.g. in the form of PKI. Assurance is a totally
different criterion. To attain the right level it is vital to ascertain that the label is attached correctly to
the right information. Hence it requires many additional controls to achieve that certainty. Crucial in
that aspect is the choice of a platform as this is the basis for assurance.
Implementing labelling for a high security environment is a costly and long-term development. But in
the long run, it can also be a very useful technique to create a solution to exchange information
across different security domains. But on the short term, obtaining results is difficult. However,
encapsulating meta-data in a label can be useful for many other purposes as well. We argued that
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