Communication Fabric With Certificate-Tagged Channel Access
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing communication systems face challenges in establishing secure and efficient inter-agency communication channels between agencies with different security policies and requirements, particularly during emergencies, due to incompatible security policies and the lack of software tools for rapid channel setup.
Innovation Solution
A communication fabric system with a fabric hub and junction, utilizing certificates with channel accessibility tags to establish trusted relationships, automate channel publishing, discovery, and subscription, and include features like text-to-speech engines and machine learning for seamless inter-agency communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If manual channel setup procedures are used between agencies with different security policies, then security requirements can be individually satisfied, but setup time becomes excessively long and coordination efficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The fabric management application pre-establishes trust relationships with agencies by issuing certificates containing channel accessibility tags before emergencies occur. This preliminary action allows channels to be rapidly activated during emergencies without time-consuming security negotiations, while still ensuring security compliance through the pre-configured tags.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables agencies to autonomously publish their own channels by submitting channel creation requests with allow tags and deny tags. The fabric management application automatically processes these requests, verifies tag compatibility with existing trust relationships, and publishes channels without requiring manual security reviews from other agencies, thus reducing setup time while maintaining security standards.
2Productivity
If automated channel publishing with tag verification is implemented, then channel setup time is reduced, but system complexity increases due to certificate management and tag verification mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The fabric management application serves as an intermediary that centralizes certificate issuance and tag verification functions. By consolidating these complex security management tasks in a single intermediary component, the system achieves automated rapid channel deployment while containing complexity in a manageable central authority rather than distributing it across all agencies.
Solution Approach 2:
The certificate structure with channel accessibility tags serves multiple functions simultaneously: it establishes trust relationships between agencies, defines channel access permissions, and enables automated verification. This multi-functional design reduces the need for separate security protocols and manual configuration steps, achieving high productivity without proportionally increasing system complexity.
3Reliability
If certificates with channel accessibility tags are issued to agencies, then secure inter-agency communication is enabled, but the complexity of managing multiple certificates and tags increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple security functions into a single certificate structure: trust relationship verification, channel access permissions, and agency identification are all combined in one certificate with embedded tags. This consolidation maintains communication security while significantly simplifying certificate management compared to handling separate security credentials and access control lists.
Solution Approach 2:
Agencies receive their certificates automatically from the fabric management application through automated issuance processes. The certificates are configured with appropriate channel accessibility tags based on the agency's security requirements, eliminating the need for manual certificate configuration and reducing the operational burden on agency personnel.
4Reliability
If the fabric management application automatically verifies tags and configures routing rules, then channel accessibility control is improved, but processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The fabric management application performs tag verification selectively rather than comprehensively: it verifies only the relevant allow tags and deny tags against the specific channel being published, rather than checking all possible tag combinations across all channels. This partial verification approach maintains access control accuracy while reducing processing resource consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of providing inter-agency communications. The method comprises transmitting, by a fabric management application at a fabric hub of a communication fabric to a first agency, a certificate comprising tags associated with a channel accessibility of the first agency; receiving, by the fabric management application from a second agency, a request to create a channel, the request comprising an allow tag and/or a deny tag; publishing, by the fabric management application, the channel in a directory; transmitting, by the fabric management application to the first agency, in response to the publishing and a verification of the tags of the first agency against the allow tag and/or the deny tag, a notification of the channel; configuring, by the fabric management application, rules at a fabric junction of the communication fabric; and routing, by the fabric junction, based on the rules, communications between the first and second agencies in the channel.