Auditable Shared Objects: From Registers to Synchronization Primitives

TL;DR

This paper extends auditability concepts from single-writer registers to multi-writer registers and other shared objects, providing implementations with optimal complexity and exploring their relation to access control mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-writer auditable register implementation with optimal step complexity and extends auditability to LL/SC objects, also relating to access control objects.

Findings

Implemented an auditable n-writer m-reader register with O(n+m) complexity.

Showed the consensus number of the sliding registers is necessary.

Extended auditability to load-linked/store-conditional objects.

Abstract

Auditability allows to track operations performed on a shared object, recording who accessed which information. This gives data owners more control on their data. Initially studied in the context of single-writer registers, this work extends the notion of auditability to other shared objects, and studies their properties. We start by moving from single-writer to multi-writer registers, and provide an implementation of an auditable $n$-writer $m$-reader read / write register, with $O(n+m)$ step complexity. This implementation uses $(m+n)$-sliding registers, which have consensus number $m+n$. We show that this consensus number is necessary. The implementation extends naturally to support an auditable load-linked / store-conditional (LL/SC) shared object. LL/SC is a primitive that supports efficient implementation of many shared objects. Finally, we relate auditable registers to other access control objects, by implementing an anti-flickering deny list from auditable registers.