Visible to the public Variability Modeling of Cryptographic Components: Clafer Experience Report

TitleVariability Modeling of Cryptographic Components: Clafer Experience Report
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsNadi, Sarah, Krüger, Stefan
Conference NameProceedings of the Tenth International Workshop on Variability Modelling of Software-intensive Systems
PublisherACM
Conference LocationNew York, NY, USA
ISBN Number978-1-4503-4019-9
KeywordsClafer, cryptography, expert systems, Human Behavior, pubcrawl, resilience, Scalability, Variability Modeling
AbstractSoftware systems need to use cryptography to protect any sensitive data they collect. However, there are various classes of cryptographic components (e.g., ciphers, digests, etc.), each suitable for a specific purpose. Additionally, each class of such components comes with various algorithms and configurations. Finding the right combination of algorithms and correct settings to use is often difficult. We believe that using variability modeling to model these algorithms, their relationships, and restrictions can help non-experts navigate this complex domain. In this paper, we report on our experience modeling cryptographic components in Clafer, a modeling language that combines feature modeling and meta-modeling. We discuss design decisions we took as well as the challenges we ran into. Our work helps expand variability modeling into new domains and sheds lights on modeling requirements that appear in practice.
URLhttp://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2866614.2866629
DOI10.1145/2866614.2866629
Citation Keynadi_variability_2016