  Attribute-based encryption is a form of encryption which offers the capacity
to encrypt data such that it is only accessible to individuals holding a
satisfactory configuration of attributes. As cloud and distributed computing
become more pervasive in both private and public spheres, attribute-based
encryption holds potential to address the issue of achieving secure
authentication, authorization, and transmission in these environments where
performance must scale with security while also supporting fine-grained access
control among a massively large number of consumers. With this work, we offer
an example generic configurable stateless protocol for secure attribute-based
authentication, authorization, storage, and transmission in distributed storage
systems based upon ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE),
discuss the experience of implementing a distributed storage system around this
protocol, and present future avenues of work enabled by such a protocol. The
key contribution of this work is an illustration of a means by which any CP-ABE
system may be utilized in a black-box manner for attribute-based authentication
and cryptographically enforced attribute-based access control in distributed
storage systems.
