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Open vs. closed systems for accountability

Published: 08 April 2014 Publication History

Abstract

The relationship between accountability and identity in online life presents many interesting questions. Here, we first systematically survey the various (directed) relationships among principals, system identities (nyms) used by principals, and actions carried out by principals using those nyms. We also map these relationships to corresponding accountability-related properties from the literature.
Because punishment is fundamental to accountability, we then focus on the relationship between punishment and the strength of the connection between principals and nyms. To study this particular relationship, we formulate a utility-theoretic framework that distinguishes between principals and the identities they may use to commit violations. In doing so, we argue that the analogue applicable to our setting of the well known concept of quasilinear utility is insufficiently rich to capture important properties such as reputation. We propose more general utilities with linear transfer that do seem suitable for this model.
In our use of this framework, we define notions of "open" and "closed" systems. This distinction captures the degree to which system participants are required to be bound to their system identities as a condition of participating in the system. This allows us to study the relationship between the strength of identity binding and the accountability properties of a system.

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  • (2024)Accountable Bulletin Boards: Definition and Provably Secure Implementation2024 IEEE 37th Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF)10.1109/CSF61375.2024.00013(201-216)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
  • (2023)AUC: Accountable Universal Composability2023 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)10.1109/SP46215.2023.10179384(1148-1167)Online publication date: May-2023
  • (2022)Policy ManagementIoT Supply Chain Security Risk Analysis and Mitigation10.1007/978-3-031-08480-5_4(57-106)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2022
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Published In

HotSoS '14: Proceedings of the 2014 Symposium and Bootcamp on the Science of Security
April 2014
184 pages
ISBN:9781450329071
DOI:10.1145/2600176
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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  • No. Carolina State Univeresity: North Carolina State University

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 08 April 2014

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Author Tags

  1. accountability
  2. identity
  3. utility

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  • Research-article

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HotSoS '14
Sponsor:
  • No. Carolina State Univeresity
HotSoS '14: Symposium and Bootcamp on the Science of Security
April 8 - 9, 2014
North Carolina, Raleigh, USA

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HotSoS '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 12 of 21 submissions, 57%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 34 of 60 submissions, 57%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Accountable Bulletin Boards: Definition and Provably Secure Implementation2024 IEEE 37th Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF)10.1109/CSF61375.2024.00013(201-216)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
  • (2023)AUC: Accountable Universal Composability2023 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)10.1109/SP46215.2023.10179384(1148-1167)Online publication date: May-2023
  • (2022)Policy ManagementIoT Supply Chain Security Risk Analysis and Mitigation10.1007/978-3-031-08480-5_4(57-106)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2022
  • (2015)Cybersecurity as an Application Domain for Multiagent SystemsProceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/2772879.2773304(1207-1212)Online publication date: 4-May-2015
  • (2015)A multi-resolution accountable logging and its applicationsComputer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking10.1016/j.comnet.2015.06.01189:C(44-58)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2015

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