The Abstract Accountability Language: its Syntax, Semantics and Tools

Accountability is the driving principle for several of regulatory frameworks such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act, thus influencing how organizations run their business processes. It is a central concept for enabling trust and assurance in cloud computing and future internet-based services that may emerge. Nevertheless, accountability can have different interpretations according to the level abstraction. This leads to uncertainty concerning handling and responsibility for data in computer systems with outsourcing supply-chains, as in cloud computing. When defining policies to govern organizations, we need tools to model accountability in rich contexts, including concepts like multiple agents, obligations, remediation actions and temporal aspects. The Abstract Accountability Language (AAL) is built on logical foundations allowing to describe real-world scenarios involving accountability concerns. Its semantic principles provide us means to answer whether the conditions to reach accountability in a given context are met. Moreover, we created a tool support to verify and monitor accountability policies

Modeling Accountable Cloud Services

Cloud computing services have been increasingly considered by business as a viable option for reducing IT expenditure. The highly automated and agile nature of cloud services offer businesses low cost, high efficiency and flexibility benefits. However, there are often associated problems with unmanaged accountability such as lack of disclosure of service obligations, mechanisms for detection for obligation fulfilment or determination of liable party if an obligation is violated. This paper analyses the accountability properties of a cloud service and proposes an accountable cloud service (ACS) model to address those problems. The ACS model is underpinned by a hybrid logic system called Dynamic Logic for Accountability (DLA) extended from Dynamic Logic. ACS provides an intuitive notation for modeling service collaboration diagrams based on a reduced version of BPMN2.0 to capture the fulfillment of service obligations. We also propose an Obligation Flow Diagram (OFD) as a simple method for conflict resolution and verification for the ACS model. The ACS model enables obligation specification, decomposition, validation, machine-interpretation, monitoring and reasoning, and ultimately facilitates accountability in cloud service consumption. Using Amazon S3 service as a case study, we show how to address those known accountability problems using our ACS model. Finally we discuss the applicability of our model to cloud services in general.8 page(s

Modeling accountable cloud services based on dynamic logic for accountability

Cloud computing services have been increasingly considered by businesses as a viable option for reducing IT expenditure. However, there are often associated problems with unmanaged accountability. This paper first analyses the accountability properties of a cloud service and then proposes the accountable cloud service (ACS) model to address those problems. In addition, the authors argue that from an accountability perspective a cloud service is a proactive system that needs to be modeled differently from the traditional reactive systems. They extend traditional structural operational semantics to cater for modeling of actors as well as scenarios of inaction and exception in state transitions. This leads to the creation of a new form of a process algebra called Accountable Process Algebra (APA). They also propose an Obligation Flow Diagram (OFD) as a simple method for conflict resolution and verification for the ACS model. The ACS model enables obligation specification, validation, decomposition, machine-interpretation, monitoring and reasoning, and ultimately facilitates accountability in cloud service consumption. Using Amazon S3 service as a case study, they show how to address those known accountability problems by using our ACS model. Finally the authors discuss the applicability of their model to cloud services in general.30 page(s