Active Certificates: A Framework for Delegation

In this paper, we present a novel approach to delegation in computer systems. We exploit mobile code capabilities of today’s systems to build active certificates: cryptographically signed mobile agents that implement delegation policy. Active certificates arrive at a new combination of properties, including expressivity, transparency, and offline operation, that is not available in existing systems. These properties make active certificates powerful tools to express delegation. Active certificates can also be used as a mechanism to implement complex policy systems, such as public key infrastructures; systems built in this way are easily extensible and interoperable. A prototype implementation of active certificates has been built as part of the Ninja [17] project.

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