This glossary is intended to explain uncommon technical terms and acronyms in the context in which they are used in this book. It is not intended to serve as a general-purpose glossary, or as a complete glossary of security terms. Readers in search of a general-purpose glossary of security terminology are referred to RFC 2828 "Internet Security Glossary" by Robert Shirey.

*-property

"No write down", an axiom of the Bell-LaPadula security model which states that a subject may only write to an object of an equal or higher security level. This prevents the inadvertent (or deliberate) release of sensitive data.

ACL

Access Control List, an access control enforcement mechanism that lists permitted access types for subjects to an object.

ADF

Access Decision Facility, the portion of a GFAC access control mechanism that decides whether access is allowed or not.

ADL

Assertion Definition Language, a C-like specification language.

AEF

Access Enforcement Facility, the portion of a GFAC access control mechanism that enforces the decisions made by the ADF.

APKI

Architecture for Public-Key Infrastructure, a proposed PKI architecture design from the Open Group.

ASIC

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, a custom IC created to a user's specifications.

BAN logic

Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic, a logic for describing and analysing authentication protocols.

CA

Certification Authority, an entity that issues certificates (and sometimes performs various checks before doing so).

CBC

Cipher Block Chaining, a mode of operation for a block cipher that chains encrypted blocks together, thus breaking up patterns in the plaintext.

CC

Common Criteria, successor to...