Facilitating Data Usage Control Through IPv6 Extension Headers

Haydar Qarawlus, Malte Hellmeier, Falk Howar, Falk Howar

2025

Abstract

Data ownership and privacy control are gaining increasing attention and relevance. More and more aspects of enforcement methods for data ownership, data usage control, and data access control are being researched to find suitable solutions and practical applications. This includes technical methods, standards, and reference architectures for controlling data after it has been shared, which are frequently discussed under the term data sovereignty. However, enforcing data sovereignty is still challenging, and most solutions only work in trusted environments or are focused on the application layer. In this paper, we focus on policy enforcement mechanisms to facilitate data sovereignty on a lower network layer. We explore the use of steganography concepts and IPv6 extension headers in data usage control as an additional usage control measure. We propose the use of IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options and Destination Options Extension Headers, including possible implementation methods and a prototype setup. We tested our work in multiple scenarios to examine performance and applicability. The results highlight the numerous benefits of our proposal with minimal drawbacks.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Qarawlus H., Hellmeier M. and Howar F. (2025). Facilitating Data Usage Control Through IPv6 Extension Headers. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications - Volume 1: DATA; ISBN 978-989-758-758-0, SciTePress, pages 526-535. DOI: 10.5220/0013566200003967

in Bibtex Style

@conference{data25,
author={Haydar Qarawlus and Malte Hellmeier and Falk Howar},
title={Facilitating Data Usage Control Through IPv6 Extension Headers},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications - Volume 1: DATA},
year={2025},
pages={526-535},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013566200003967},
isbn={978-989-758-758-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications - Volume 1: DATA
TI - Facilitating Data Usage Control Through IPv6 Extension Headers
SN - 978-989-758-758-0
AU - Qarawlus H.
AU - Hellmeier M.
AU - Howar F.
PY - 2025
SP - 526
EP - 535
DO - 10.5220/0013566200003967
PB - SciTePress