Internet Engineering Task Force

The Secure Multicast Research Group (SMuG) is a research body chartered with the task of investigating standards for secure multicast. The results are intended to feed into a later committee at the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) for standardization. These efforts are directed into three problem areas defining the central tasks of secure multicast. From the SMuG framework document, theses areas include:

• Problem-Area-1: Multicast data handling. This area covers problems concerning the security-related treatments of multicast data by the sender and the receiver.

• Problem-Area-2: Management of keying material. This area is concerned with the secure distribution and refreshment of keying material.

• Problem-Area-3: Multicast security policies. This area covers aspects of policy in the context of multicast security, taking into consideration the fact that policies may be expressed in different ways, that they may exist at different levels in a given multicast security architecture and that they may be interpreted differently according to the context in which they are specified and implemented.

A March 2000 Information Security Magazine column describing/reviewing our efforts is available online.

My involvement with SMuG has primarily been within the Problem Area 3. In conjunction with Hugh Harney (SPARTA), A. Colegrove (SPARTA), Peter Dinsmore (NAI Labs), and Atul Prakash (University of Michigan), we have begun exploring the requirements of the policy framework. The following drafts describe the results of these efforts.

• Multicast Security Policy, Patrick McDaniel, Hugh Harney, Peter Dinsmore, and Atul Prakash. November 2000, http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-smug-mcast-policy-01.txt .

• Multicast Security Policy Requirements and Building Blocks, P. McDaniel, H. Harney, A. Colegrove, A. Prakash, and P. Dinsmore. November 2000. http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-smug-polreq-00.txt .

• Group Security Policy Token) T. Hardjono, H. Harney, P. McDaniel, A. Colegrove , and P. Dinsmore. November 2001. http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-msec-gspt-01.txt

The following are presentations given at the various SMuG group meetings.

• Multicast Security Policy Requirements and Building Blocks, December 2000. San Diego, CA. (power-point) (pdf)

• Policy Problem Area 3 - Overview and Requirements. San Diego, CA. December 12, 2000. (power-point) (pdf)

• Problem Area 3: Policy, Patrick McDaniel. July 2000, Pittsburgh, PA. (power-point) (pdf)

• Multicast Security Policy Definition, Patrick McDaniel. November, 1999, Omni hotel, Washington D.C. (power-point) (pdf)

• Antigone: A Flexible Framework for Secure Group Communication, Patrick McDaniel. September, 1999, NAI Labs, Baltimore Maryland. (power-point) (pdf)

If you have any questions or suggestions on these presentation and documents, please contact me at pdmcdan@eecs.umich.edu