Security Policy Information Files XML Schemas

Security labels provide a way of indicating the sensivity of a piece of information, for example e-mail message, document, directory information. They indicate to both the recipient and the associated applications how the information should be handled.

Security Policy Information Files are a way of encapsulating all of the valid security label combinations within a given policy so that security labels can be:

• consistently applied
• consistently displayed
• subjected to a access control decision

SDN.801 defines any ASN.1 format for describing the security policy, and these have been widely adopted in North American military systems. A number of applications for example, e-mail clients, messaging guards, use these SPIFs.

However there are very few tools around to manage these SPIF files. In addition, X.841 defines a very similar, but not identical, security policy information file.

...