Ad Hoc Collaboration: Technology, Applications, and Security

1. Ad Hoc Collaboration: Technology, Applications, and Security Samir Chatterjee, Ph.D Claremont Graduate University Internet2 Fall Member meeting, Austin, Texas. September 28, 2004. Internet2 Fall Meeting

2. Introducing the Panelists • Kristie Kosaka, Boeing Corporation • Mary Thompson, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory • Jim Miller, inSORS Integrated Communications, Inc. • Deb Agarwal, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Joining via InSORS Video) Internet2 Fall Meeting

3. Ad Hoc Collaboration • Advances in science and engineering are largely driven by collaborative efforts today. More knowledge comes out of collaboration activities. • Very little ad hoc collaboration tools out there. What is ad hoc collaboration? Definition 1: environments that support “spontaneous” collaboration, where two or more people decide to have an unplanned interaction with one another. Definition 2: It enables participants to create collaboration groups “on the fly” with little involvement from an administrator. Securing such interaction is very challenging. Internet2 Fall Meeting

4. Example Scenarios • Scenario 1: Alice bumps into Casey at a conference lounge. They discuss to work together on a paper. Alice has a WiFi enabled laptop while Casey has an Internet enabled PDA. Alice feels like inviting Bob to the discussion. But Bob is in Egypt in an Internet Café. Casey wants to include Dawn. She is presently on a cell phone. How can a secure ad hoc collaboration environment be built? • Cannot trust café, limited bandwidth, audio but not video preferred, diversity of devices, who can you trust? Internet2 Fall Meeting

5. Another Scenario • Scenario 2:An Anthrax spill (bio-terrorism) event happens at a US city. Various agencies are called in. First responders, emergency aid, law enforcement, FBI, Homeland Security, medical practitioners, environmental specialists, local and state police, related government agencies. They all use various devices: cell phones, laptops, desktops, video etc. • Bigger scale ad hoc group, diversity of devices, numerous technologies, yet communication and information must be secured. Internet2 Fall Meeting

6. Salient Features & Challenges • Key Differentiators • Immediate provisioning of collaboration membership and privileges. • Flexibility in security technologies and media modalities • Participation by members or outsiders, without administrative involvement. • Granular control of privileges, with the option to revoke at any time. • Challenges • Authentication – Range from ID/pwd to biometrics • Authorization – static preset rules don’t work. Require dynamic rules after gaining confidence in identity • Trust management – very little initial trust, can be incrementally built. • Modalities – constraints require gradual buildup from audio, text to full video • Federation – inter-institutional policy issues. Internet2 Fall Meeting

7. What is Needed? • Tools to manage trust, policies and identities in ad hoc setting. • Software that can adapt to environmental constraints and choose proper modalities. • Implementation and testing of new open source security models that apply to ad hoc requirements. Internet2 Fall Meeting

8. Existing Work • Edwards, W.K. and e. al. Using Speakeasy for Ad Hoc Peer-to-Peer Collaboration. in CSCW. 2002. New Orleans, Louisiana: ACM. • Litiu, R. and A. Prakash. Developing Adaptive Groupware Applications Using a Mobile Component Framework. in CSCW. 2000. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: ACM. • Camarillo, G. and A. Johnston, Ad-Hoc Conferencing in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), "http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-camarillo-sipping-adhoc-conferencing-00.txt“. • New Security Model and Akenti work at LBNL. Internet2 Fall Meeting