Given the conceptual complexity of the global computer environment, one would like to abstract away this layer of complexity and to enable developers and software architects to focus only on the application to be developed. The overlay computer will instead transparently provide the security functionalities needed for the application to be securely run in a global environment. As an added benefit, functionalities provided by the overlay computer will not have to be duplicated in each application.
For a concrete example (that will be discussed in more detail in the following sections) suppose that a distributed application for mining knowledge from several proprietary data sets is to be developed. The overlay computer will enable the application developer to concentrate on the design of the application as if privacy of the data base were not an issue. It will be the task of the overlay computers to wrap the application in such a way that privacy of the data sets is not compromised. Moreover, the security must be guaranteed even when the distributed data mining application is run concurrently with several others applications working on the same data sets. At the same time, to be of any use, the overlay computer must offer scalable and robust implementations of the functionalities. It is thus important to concentrate research efforts on the efficiency of the underlying protocols and algorithms and to develop computational and algorithmic theories that describe and model security issues in the new conceptual scenario of a global computer.

In summary, the research work within Subproject SP4 consists of the following workpackages:

WP 4.1: Trust Management and formal methods
WP 4.2: Privacy, Identity and Anonymity
WP 4.3: Secure Distributed Computation and Game Theoretic Techniques

Deliverables

Deliverable No	Deliverable name	WP	pdf
D4.0.1	Subproject report on the activities of the first 12 months	4.0
D4.1.1	Trust management: State-of-the-art survey and algorithmic solutions	4.1
D4.2.1	Privacy, identity and anonymity: State-of-the-art survey and algorithmic solutions	4.2
D4.2.2	Prototype for anonymous communication: Specification and design report	4.2
D4.3.1	Secure distributed computation: State-of-the-art Survey and algorithmic solutions	4.3
D4.3.2	Prototype for secure distributed protocols: Specification and design report	4.3
D4.0.2	Subproject report on the activities of months 13-24	4.0
D4.1.2	Algorithmic solutions for trust and formal methods	4.1
D4.1.3	Prototype for protocol security verification: Design and specification report	4.1
D4.2.3	Algorithmic solutions for privacy, identity and anonymity	4.2
D4.3.3	Algorithmic solutions for secure and rationally secure distributed computation	4.3
D4.0.3	Subproject report on the activities of months 25-36	4.0
D4.1.4	Algorithmic solutions for trust and formal methods	4.1
D4.2.4	Algorithmic solutions for privacy, identity and anonymity	4.2
D4.3.4	Algorithmic solutions for secure distributed computation and game theoretic techniques	4.3

* Not yet approved by EU.