Pervasive Application Rights Management Architecture
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Masters (Research)Master of Science (M.Sc.)
Date:
2005-07Author:
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Abstract:
This dissertation describes an application rights management architecture that combines
license management with digital rights management to provide an integrated platform for the
specification, generation, delivery and management of application usage rights for pervasive
computing environments. A new rights expression language is developed, extended from the
existing language, ODRL, which allows the expression of mobile application usage rights
and supports fine-grained usage models. An audit-based usage rights model is introduced
to support application usage without requiring immediate network availability. Rights are
designed to be enforced on the device itself, without the need for communication with a
server for every validation, realising the goal of reduced wide-area communications by mobile
devices. The addition of the rights enforcement source code to the original application is
facilitated using aspect-oriented programming and is performed at the license management
server rather than by the developer. Back-end license management services, hosted by the
application vendor, and/or enterprise customer, are based on web services so they can deliver
applications and licenses to any client device that supports SOAP and/or HTTP(S) protocols
and provide an integrated platform for management of licenses on both desktop and mobile
devices.
The thesis was motivated by the lack of suitable usage right management systems for the
emerging pervasive environments. Pervasive computing devices include handheld computers,
personal digital assistants, mobile phones, pagers, and others, and are generally characterised
by mobility, occasional network connectivity, constrained resources, and, in the case of mobile
phones, unique hardware identification by an IMEI number. Communication via wide-area
network is available in the mobile environment but is still costly when compared to fixed
networks. However, mobile devices can communicate using a variety of free short-range
protocols, such as Bluetooth, Infrared, and 802.11.
Software applications running on pervasive computing devices are generally licensed using
software License Management Systems (LMS), distributed software architectures that manage
software licenses throughout their life-cycle, or Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems,
systems that specify and enforce usage rights on copyrighted information. Both these types of systems are originally developed for desktop devices in the fixed network environment.
Existing LMS assume constant network connectivity present in LANs and require network
connections for license validation and enforcement. This assumption can not be made in
pervasive environments because network connectivity is only occasional and often costly.
Existing LMS assume constant network connectivity present in LANs and require network
connections for license validation and enforcement. This assumption can not be made in
pervasive environments because network connectivity is only occasional and often costly.
Existing LMS also require the addition of calls to a licensing API in the licensed application?s
source code. This increases the application development time, as it is performed by the
application developer, and it requires knowledge of licensing APIs.
DRM systems that are used to manage usage rights on applications do not require a network
connection or knowledge of proprietary APIs, however they are primarily designed for
management of usage rights on content. As DRM systems treat applications and content in
the same manner, they fail to support fine-grained usage models for applications. License
validation and enforcement for an application is performed only once, on application loading,
but license enforcement needs to be performed throughout the application execution to
support flexible usage models such as feature-based, audit-based, and metered usage models.
A pervasive license management system should overcome the limitations of the existing
DRM and desktop LMS when deployed in pervasive computing environments. It should
minimize the amount of wide area network traffic to reduce overhead costs introduced by the
licensing system. It also requires usage rights models that do not make the assumption of an
immediate network connection, to account for the occasional connectivity of mobile devices.
A variety of application usage models should be supported so users can choose the best value
model. Also, this system should provide a central point for managing all of the licensed
software to support enterprise customers, whether it runs on mobile or desktop devices, and
integrate easily within other enterprise services, such as payment or asset management. The
architecture described in the thesis is designed to meet all of these requirements.
This thesis is a part of the PARMA project that provides a full usage rights architecture.
A rights expression language, usage rights servers and a means of integration of usage rights
in applications are provided in this thesis, while a client usage right enforcement architecture
is provided by the remaining parts of the project.
Author: Dusparic, Ivana
Advisor:
Dowling, JimType of material:
Masters (Research)Master of Science (M.Sc.)
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