Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham

The University of Texas at Dallas

Lecture #8

Trustworthy Semantic Webs

February 2011

Data and Applications Security Developments and Directions

Outline

Semantic web XML and XML security RDF and RDF security Ontologies Rules Applications Reference:

- Building trustworthy semantic web, Thuraisingham, CRC Press, 2007

From Today’s Web to Semantic web Today’s web

- High recall, low precision: Too many web pages resulting in searches, many not relevant

- Sometimes low recall

- Results sensitive to vocabulary: Different words even if they mean the same thing do not results in same web pages

- Results are single web pages not linked web pages Semantic web

- Machine understandable web pages

- Activities on the web such as searching with little or no human intervention

- Technologies for knowledge management, e-commerce, interoperability

- Solutions to the problems faced by today’s web

Knowledge Management and Personal Agents Knowledge Management

- Corporation Need: Searching, extracting and maintaining information, uncovering hidden dependencies, viewing information

- Semantic web for knowledge management: Organizing knowledge, automated tools for maintaining knowledge, question answering, querying multiple documents, controlling access to documents

Personal Agent

- John is a president of a company. He needs to have a surgery for a serious but not a critical illness. With current web he has to check each web page for relevant information, make decisions depending on the information provided

- With the semantic web, the agent will retrieve all the relevant information, synthesize the information, ask John if needed, and then present the various options and makes recommendations

E-Commerce

Business to Consumer

- Users shopping on the web; wrapper technology is used to extract information about user preferences etc. and display the products to the user

- Use of semantic web: Develop software agents that can interpret privacy requirements, pricing and product information and display timely and correct information to the use; also provides information about the reputation of shops

Business to Business

- Organizations work together and carrying out transactions such as collaborating on a product, supply chains etc. With today’s web lack of standards for data exchange

- Use of semantic web: XML is a big improvement, but need to agree on vocabulary. Future will be the use of ontologies to agree on meanings and interpretations

Semantic Web Technologies

Explicit metadata:

- Metadata is data about data; Need metadata to be explicitly specified so that different groups and organizations will know what is on the web

- Metadata specification languages include XML and RDF Ontologies

- Explicit and formal specification of conceptualization describes a domain of discourse; relationships

- Ontology languages include XML, RDF, OWL Logic

- Logic can be used to specify facts as well as rules; New facts and derived from existing facts based on the inference rules

- Descriptive Logic is the type of logic that has been developed for semantic web applications

Layered Approach: Tim Berners Lee’s Visionwww.w3c.org

What is XML all about?

XML is needed due to the limitations of HTML and complexities of SGML

It is an extensible markup language specified by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

Designed to make the interchange of structured documents over the Internet easier

Key to XML used to be Document Type Definitions (DTDs)

- Defines the role of each element of text in a formal model XML schemas have now become critical to specify the

structure

- XML schemas are also XML documents

XML Elements

XML StatementJohn Smith is a Professor in Texas

This can be expressed as follows:

<Professor><name> John Smith </name><state> Texas </state>

</Professor>

XML Elements

Now suppose this data can be read by anyone then we can augment the XML statement by an additional element called access as follows.

<Professor><name> John Smith </name><state> Texas </state><access> All, Read </access>

</Professor>

XML Elements

If only HR can update this XML statement, then we have the following:

<Professor><name> John Smith </name><state> Texas </state><access> HR department, Write </access>

</Professor>

XML Elements

We may not wish for everyone to know that John Smith is a professor, but we can give out the information that this professor is in Texas.

This can be expressed as:

<Professor><name> John Smith, Govt-official, Read </name><state> Texas, All, Read </state><access> HR department, Write </access>

</Professor>

XML Attributes

Suppose we want to specify to access based on attribute values. One way to specify such access is given below.

<ProfessorName = “John Smith”, Access = All, ReadSalary = “60K”, Access = Administrator, Read, WriteDepartment = “Security” Access = All, Read

</Professor

Here we assume that everyone can read the name John Smith and Department Security.

But only the administrator can read and write the salary attribute.

XML DTD

DTDs essentially specify the structure of XML documents.

Consider the following DTD for Professor with elements Name and State.

This will be specified as:

<!ELEMENT Professor Officer (Name, State)><!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)><!ELEMENR state (#PCDATA)><!ELEMENT access (#PCDATA).>

XML Schema

While DTDs were the early attempts to specify structure for XML documents, XML schemas are far more elegant to specify structures.

Unlike DTDs XML schemas essentially use the XML syntax for specification.

Consider the following example:

<ComplexType = name = “ProfessorType”><Sequence><element name = “name” type = “string”/><element name = “state” type = “string”/><element name = “access” type = “strong/><Sequence>

</ComplexType>

XML NamespacesNamespaces are used for DISAMBIGUATION

<CountryX: Academic-Institution

Xmlns: CountryX = http://www.CountryX.edu/Instution DTD”

Xmlns: USA = “http://www.USA.edu/Instution DTD”Xmlns: UK = “http://www.UK.edu/Instution DTD”

<USA: Title = CollegeUSA: Name = “University of Texas at Dallas”USA: State = Texas”

<UK: Title = UniversityUK: Name = “Cambridge University”UK: State = Cambs

</CountryX: Acedmic-Instiution>

XML Namespaces

<Country: Academic-Institution<Access = Government-official, Read </Access>

Xmlns: CountryX = http://www.CountryX.edu/Instution DTD”

Xmlns: USA = “http://www.USA.edu/Instution DTD”Xmlns: UK = “http://www.UK.edu/Instution DTD”

<USA: Title = CollegeUSA: Name = “University of Texas at Dallas”USA: State = Texas”

<UK: Title = UniversityUK: Name = “Cambridge University”UK: State = Cambs

</CountryX: Academic-Institution>

Federations/Distribution

Site 1 document:<Professor-name>

<ID> 111 </ID><Name> John Smith </name><State> Texas </state>

</Professor-name>

Site 2 document:<Professor-salary>

<ID> 111 </ID><salary> 60K </salary>

<Professor-salary>

Credentials in XML

<Professor credID=“9” subID = “16: CIssuer = “2”><name> Alice Brown </name><university> University of X <university/><department> CS </department><research-group> Security </research-group>

</Professor>

<Secretary credID=“12” subID = “4: CIssuer = “2”><name> John James </name><university> University of X <university/><department> CS </department><level> Senior </level>

</Secretary>

Policies in XML

<? Xml VERSION = “1.0” ENCODING = “utf-8”?> <Policy–base>

<policy-spec cred-expr = “//Professor[department = ‘CS’]” target = “annual_ report.xml” path = “//Patent[@Dept = ‘CS’]//Node()” priv = “VIEW”/>

<policy-spec cred-expr = “//Professor[department = ‘CS’]” target = “annual_ report.xml” path = “//Patent[@Dept = ‘EE’] /Short-descr/Node() and //Patent [@Dept = ‘EE’]/authors” priv = “VIEW”/>

<policy-spec cred-expr = - - - -

<policy-spec cred-expr = - - --

</Policy-base>

Explantaion: CS professors are entitled to access all the patents of their department. They are entitled to see only the short descriptions and authors of patents of the EE department

Access Control Strategy Subjects request access to XML documents under two modes: Browsing and

authoring

- With browsing access subject can read/navigate documents

- Authoring access is needed to modify, delete, append documents Access control module checks the policy based and applies policy specs Views of the document are created based on credentials and policy specs In case of conflict, least access privilege rule is enforced Works for Push/Pull modes

System Architecture for Access Control

UserPull/Query Push/result

XML Documents

X-Access X-AdminAdmin Tools

Policybase

Credentialbase

Third-Party Architecture

Credential base

policy baseXML Source

User/Subject

Owner

Publisher

Query

Reply documen

t

SE-XML

credentials

The Owner is the producer of information It specifies access control policies

The Publisher is responsible for managing (a portion of) the Owner information and answering subject queries

Goal: Untrusted Publisher with respect to Authenticity and Completeness checking

XML Databases

Data is presented as XML documents Query language: XML-QL Query optimization Managing transactions on XML documents Metadata management: XML schemas/DTDs Access methods and index strategies XML security and integrity management

Inference/Privacy Control

Policies

Ontologies

Rules

XML DatabaseXMLDocumentsWeb Pages, Databases

Inference Engine/Rules Processor

Interface to the Semantic WebTechnologyBy UTD

Why RDF?

XML cannot be used to specify semantics Example:

- Professor is a subclass of Academic Staff

- Professor inherits all properties of Academic Staff RDF was specified so that the inadequacies of XML could be

handled RDF uses XML Syntax Additional constructs are needed for RDF

RDF

Resource Description Framework is the essence of the semantic web

Adds semantics with the use of ontologies, XML syntax RDF Concepts

- Basic Model Resources, Properties and Statements

- Container Model Bag, Sequence and Alternative

RDF Basics

Resource: Everything is a resource

- Person, Vehicle, etc. Property: properties describe relationships between

resources

- E.g., Invented Statement: (Object, Property, Value) Triple

- Berners Lee invented the Semantic Web

RDF Container Model

Bag: Unordered container, may contain multiple occurrences

- Rdf: Bag Seq: Ordered container, may contain multiple occurrences

- Rdf: Seq Alt: a set of alternatives

- Rdf: Alt

RDF Specification

<rdf: RDF xmlns: rdf = “http://w3c.org/1999/02-22-rdf-syntax-ns#” xmlns: xsd = “http:// - - - xmlns: uni = “http:// - - - -

<rdf: Description: rdf: about = “949352” <uni: name = Berners Lee</uni:name> <uni: title> Professor < uni:title> </rdf: Description>

<rdf: Description rdf: about: “ZZZ”< uni: bookname> semantic web <uni:bookname>< uni: authoredby: Berners Lee <uni:authoredby>

</rdf: Description>

</rdf: RDF>

RDF Specification

RDF specifications have been given for Attributes, Types Nesting, Containers, etc.

How can security policies be included in the specification Example: consider the statement “Berners Les is the Author

of the book Semantic Web” Do we allow access to the connection between author and

book? Do we allow access to the connection but not to the author name and book name?

RDF Policy Specification

<rdf: RDF xmlns: rdf = “http://w3c.org/1999/02-22-rdf-syntax-ns#” xmlns: xsd = “http:// - - - xmlns: uni = “http:// - - - -

<rdf: Description: rdf: about = “949352” <uni: name = Berners Lee</uni:name> <uni: title> Professor < uni:title>Level = L1 </rdf: Description>

<rdf: Description rdf: about: “ZZZ”< uni: bookname> semantic web <uni:bookname>< uni: authoredby: Berners Lee <uni:authoredby>

Level = L2</rdf: Description>

</rdf: RDF>

RDF Schema

Need RDF Schema to specify statements such as professor is a subclass of academic staff

<rdfs: Class rdf: ID = “professor”

<rdfs: comment>

The class of Professors

All professors are Academic Staff Members.

<rdfs: comment>

<rdfs: subClassof rdf: resource = “academicStaffMember”/>

<rdfs: Class>

RDF Schema: Security Policies

How can security policies be specified?

<rdfs: Class rdf: ID = “professor”

<rdfs: comment>

The class of Professors

All professors are Academic Staff Members.

<rdfs: comment>

<rdfs: subClassof rdf: resource = “academicStaffMember”/>

Level = L

<rdfs: Class>

RDF Axiomatic Semantics

First order logic to specify formulas and inferencing

- Built in functions (First) and predicates (Type)

- Modus Ponens

- From A and If A then B, deduce B

Example: All containers are Resources

- Type(?C, Container) Type(?c, Resource)

- If we have Type(A, Container) then we can infer (Type A, Resource)

RDF Inferencing

While first order logic provides a proof system, it will be computationally infeasible

As a result horn clause logic was developed for logic programming; this is still computationally expensive

RDF uses If then Rules

IF E contains the triples (?u, rdfs: subClassof, ?v)

and (?v, rdfs: subClassof ?w)

THEN

E also contains the triple (?u, rdfs: subClassOf, ?w)

That is, if u is a subclass of v, and v is a subclass of w, then u is a subclass of w

RDF Query

One can query RDF using XML, but this will be very difficult as RDF is much richer than XML

Is there an analogy between say XQuery and a query language for RDF?

RQL – an SQL-like language has been developed for RDF Select from “RDF document” where some “condition”

Policies in RDF

How can policies be specified? Should policies be specified as shown in the examples,

extensions to RDF syntax? Should policies be specified as RDF documents? Is there an analogy to XPath expressions for RDF policies?

- <policy-spec cred-expr = “//Professor[department = ‘CS’]” target = “annual_ report.xml” path = “//Patent[@Dept = ‘CS’]//Node()” priv = “VIEW”/>

Ontology

Common definitions for any entity, person or thing Several ontologies have been defined and available for use Defining common ontology for an entity is a challenge Mappings have to be developed for multiple ontologies Specific languages have been developed for ontologies

Why RDF is not sufficient?

RDF was developed as XML is not sufficient to specify semantics

- E.g., class/subclass relationship RDF has issues also

- Cannot express several other properties such as Union, Interaction, relationships, etc

Need a richer language Ontology languages were developed by the semantic web

community for this purpose Essentially RDF is not sufficient to specify ontologies

Security and Ontology

Ontologies used to specify security policies

- Example: OWL to specify security policies

- Choice between XML, RDF, OWL, Rules ML, etc. Security for Ontologies

- Access control on Ontologies Give access to certain parts of the Ontology

OWL: Background

It’s a language for ontologies and relies on RDF DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) developed

early language DAML (DARPA Agent Markup Language) Europeans developed OIL (Ontology Interface Language) DAML+OIL combines both and was the starting point for OWL OWL was developed by W3C

OWL Features

Subclass relationship Class membership Equivalence of classes Classification Consistency (e.g., x is an instance of A, A is a subclass of B, x is not

an instance of B) Three types of OWL: OWL-Full, OWL-DL, OWL-Lite Automated tools for managing ontologies

- Ontology engineering

OWL Specification (e.g., Classes)

< owl: Class rdf: about = “#associateProfessor”>

<owl: disjointWith rdf: resource “#professor”/> <owl: disjointWith rdf: resource = #assistantProfessor”/>

</owl:Class>

<owl: Class rdf: ID = “faculty”>

<owl: equivalentClass rdf: resource = “academicStaffMember”/>

</owl: Class>

Faculty and Academic Staff Member are the same

Associate Professor is not a professor

Associate professor is not an Assistant professor

OWL Specification (e.g., Property)

Courses are taught by Academic staff members

< owl: ObjectProperty rdf: about = “#isTaughtby”>

<rdfs domain rdf: resource = “#course”/>

<rdfs: range rdf: resource = “#academicStaffMember”/>

<rdfs: subPropertyOf rdf: resource = #involves”/>

</owl: ObjectProperty>

OWL Specification (e.g., Property Restriction)

All first year courses are taught only by professors

< owl: Class rdf: about = “#”firstyearCourse”>

<rdfs: subClassOf>

<owl: Restriction>

<owl: onProperty rdf: resource = “#isTaughtBy”>

<owl: allValuesFrom rdf: resource = #Professor”/>

</rdfs: subClassOf>

</owl: Class>

Policies in OWL

How can policies be specified? Should policies be specified as shown in the examples,

extensions to OWL syntax? Should policies be specified as OWL documents? Is there an analogy to XPath expressions for OWL policies?

- <policy-spec cred-expr = “//Professor[department = ‘CS’]” target = “annual_ report.xml” path = “//Patent[@Dept = ‘CS’]//Node()” priv = “VIEW”/>

Policies in OWL: Example

< owl: Class rdf: about = “#associateProfessor”>

<owl: disjointWith rdf: resource “#professor”/> <owl: disjointWith rdf: resource = #assistantProfessor”/>

Level = L1

</owl:Class>

<owl: Class rdf: ID = “faculty”>

<owl: equivalentClass rdf: resource = “academicStaffMember”/>

Level = L2

</owl: Class>

Logic and Inference

First order predicate logic High level language to express knowledge Well understood semantics Logical consequence - inference Proof systems exist Sound and complete OWL is based on a subset of logic – descriptive logic

Why Rules?

RDF is built on XML and OWL is built on RDF We can express subclass relationships in RDF; additional

relationships can be expressed in OWL However reasoning power is still limited in OWL Therefore the need for rules and subsequently a markup language

for rules so that machines can understand

Example Rules

Studies(X,Y), Lives(X,Z), Loc(Y,U), Loc(Z,U) HomeStudent(X)

i.e. if John Studies at UTDallas and John is lives on Campbell Road and the location of Campbell Road and UTDallas are Richardson then John is a Home student

Note that

Person (X) Man(X) or Woman(X) is not a rule in predicate logic

That is if X is a person then X is either a man of a woman. This can be expressed in OWL

However we can have a rule of the form

Person(X) and Not Man(X) Woman(X)

Monotonic Rules

Mother(X,Y) Mother(X,Y) Parent(X,Y)

If Mary is the mother of John, then Mary is the parent of John

Syntax: Facts and Rules

Rule is of the form:

B1, B2, ---- Bn A

That is, if B1, B2, ---Bn hold then A holds

Logic Programming

Deductive logic programming is in general based on deduction

- i.e., Deduce data from existing data and rules

- e.g., Father of a father is a grandfather, John is the father of Peter and Peter is the father of James and therefore John is the grandfather of James

Inductive logic programming deduces rules from the data

- e.g., John is the father of Peter, Peter is the father of James, John is the grandfather of James, James is the father of Robert, Peter is the grandfather of Robert

- From the above data, deduce that the father of a father is a grandfather

Popular in Europe and Japan

Nonmonotonic Rules

If we have X and NOT X, we do not treat them as inconsistent as in the case of monotonic reasoning.

For example, consider the example of an apartment that is acceptable to John. That is, in general John is prepared to rent an apartment unless the apartment ahs less than two bedrooms, is does not allow pets etc. This can be expressed as follows:

Acceptable(X) Bedroom(X,Y), Y<2 NOT Acceptable(X) NOT Pets(X) NOT Acceptable(X)

Note that there could be a contradiction. But with nonmotonic reasoning this is allowed.

Rule Markup

The various components of logic are expressed in the Rule Markup Language – RuleML

Both monotonic and nonmonotnic rules can be represented

Example representation of Fact P(a) - a is a parent

<fact>

<atom>

<predicate>p</predicate>

<term>

<const>a</const>

<term>

<atom>

</fact>

Policies in RuleML

<fact><atom>

<predicate>p</predicate> <term> <const>a</const> <term> <atom>Level = L </fact>

An Application: Horizontal Information Products at Elsevier

Elsevier is publishing company based in Amsterdam

- E.g., publisher of Computer Standards and Interface Journal that has papers on all kinds of computer related standards

Currently the journals and books are grouped by topics such as say operating systems, databases, etc. (or at a higher level, Biology, Chemistry, etc.)

Where do we then put the journal Computer Standards and Interfaces?

Need horizontal groupings also

Horizontal Information Products at Elsevier

Semantic web technologies are being used by Elsevier

- RDF for document representation

- RDF for ontologies

- Query language based on RDF to query the documents and the ontologies

- E.g. Life Science Thesaurus EMTREE

- Other publishing companies are following in Elsevier’s direction

Common Threads and Challenges

Common Threads

- Building Ontologies for Semantics

- XML for Syntax Challenges

- Scalability, Resolvability

- Security policy specification, Securing the documents and ontologies

- Developing applications for secure semantic web technologies

- Automated tools for ontology management Creating, maintaining, evolving and querying ontologies