SNP: An Interface for Secure Network Programming

SNP provides a high-level abstraction for secure end-to-end network communications. It supports both stream and datagram semantics with security guarantees (e.g., data origin authenticity, data integrity and data con#dentiality). It is designed to resemble the Berkeley sockets interface so that security can be easily retro#tted into existing socket programs with only minor modi#cations. SNP is built on top of GSS-API, thus making it relatively portable across different authentication mechanisms conforming to GSS-API. SNP hides the details of GSS-API (e.g., credentials and contexts management), the communication sublayer as well as the cryptographic sublayer from the application programmers. It also encapsulates security sensitive information, thus preventing accidental or intentional disclosure by an application program.