[cap-talk] Mandatory Access Control (was: What's "Discretionary Security")

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 12:22 -0600, Karp, Alan H wrote:
> Jed wrote:
> >                                                            Is MAC 
> > really just another name for MLS?  If no, perhaps somebody could 
> > suggest a MAC scheme that isn't MLS?
> > 
> Compartments. 

I don't know that I believe it, but there is a credible argument that
goes like this:

Mandatory policies govern authority, not permissions. That is: they are
information flow policies.

All enforceable information flow policies that might be labeled
mandatory prove to restrict the flow of information according to a
dominance lattice.

Therefore, MLS is in fact the *only* mandatory policy, modulo the
possibility that there might be more levels and labels in other
lattice-governed policies.

-- 
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Ph.D.
Managing Director
The EROS Group, LLC
+1 443 927 1719 x5100