Secure Delegation Over the Internet
Ethan Thompson · 2024
Occurring frequently over the Internet, delegation involves authorizing a third party to operate on your behalf.Over the internet, this is usually done to offload some of the operational overhead of providing a service, such as owning and operating many distribution servers.Content Delivery Network (CDN)s, domain hosting, and identity authentication can all involve some form of delegation to another party.Secure delegation involves the delegating party maintaining control over who and what is being delegated, and how it is being delegated by providing the delegator various abilities such as being able to securely issue, enforce, and revoke the delegation to another party.This thesis explores delegation schemes across various applications, modeling the frequently occurring patterns, which can pave the way for unifying strategies for secure delegation over the internet.This thesis also defines design goals for secure delegation and analyzes their presence (or lack thereof) in current delegation practices.