Abstract: The Agent Operating System (AOS) provides the basic functionality needed for secure and reliable mobile agent platforms: support for secure communication, secure agent storage and migration, and minimal primitives for agent life-cycle management. Designed as a layer between local operating systems and higher level agent platform middleware, it supports interoperability between agent platforms and between different implementations of AOS itself. AOS has been tested on interoperability, both with regard to different higher-layer middleware platforms and interoperability between two implementations of AOS in C++ and Java.
Abstract: The increased availability of mobile broadband connections enables the expansion of software downloads to mobile devices. This leads to greater number of available services and a better utilisation of the computational power of mobile devices. The downside of this increased software availability is an increase in the possible attack vectors. One scenario is the misuse of resources, for example, a game is sending more SMS’s than the user wishes it to send. Thus, techniques need to be in place that prevent downloaded software from misusing resources on the mobile device. In this paper, we show how it is possible to prevent such misuse of resources through the use of a runtime monitor that performs execution-time checks to monitor if the application is behaving correctly or not. This runtime monitor enhances the flexibility of the Java security model for mobile devices and allows to enforce security policies without having to rely on signatures of the downloaded applications.
Abstract: Mobile agents require access to computing resources on heterogeneous systems across the Internet. They need to be able to negotiate their requirements with the systems on which they wish to be hosted. This paper presents a negotiation infrastructure with which agents acquire time- limited resource contracts through negotiation with one or more mediators instead of individual hosting systems. Mediators represent groups of autonomous hosts. The negotiation protocol and language are based on the WS-Agreement Specification, and have been implemented and tested within the AgentScape framework.
Abstract: An important characteristic of mobile agents is that they often do not run on their user's platform, but on the platform of someone else. There often is no pre-existing relation between the 'owner' of the running agent's process and the owner of the platform on which the agent process runs. When there are conflicts the position of the owner is not clear: is he allowed to slowdown the process or even remove it from the system? And how can the interests of the owner of the agent be protected? This paper explores the legal and technical perspectives to protecting the integrity of agent processes.
Abstract: Agent mobility is the ability of an agent to migrate from one location to another across a network. Though conceptually relatively straightforward, in practice security of mobile agents is a challenge: from transport layer security to preservation of integrity in open environments. This paper discusses the security issues involved and proposes protocols for secure agent migration. AgentScape, an agent platform for mobile agents, is used to illustrate the feasibility of the implementation of these protocols.
Abstract: Agents, and in particular mobile agents, offer a means for application developers to build distributed applications. Given homogeneity of agent platform and code base, agent migration is possible. However, many agent platforms exist, differing substantially in the support for agents. Write once - run everywhere is not yet true for agents... Heterogeneity of agent platforms, combined with heterogeneity in code-bases of agents, leads to an interesting question concerning agent mobility: can an agent migrate in a heterogeneous environment? The answer is relatively simple: an agent needs to be adapted to its destination agent platform and code-base, e.g. by an agent factory.
Abstract: Agents, and in particular mobile agents, offer a means for application developers to build distributed applications. In current agent systems, mobility of agents is constrained by the environment of the agents: the agent platform (which supports agents) and the agent s code base (e.g., DESIRE, Java). Generative migration is needed to adapt an agent to conform to its destination agent platform and code base. In this paper generative migration is described as a process of transparently adapting an agent. An agent can continue to function at its new location on a completely different agent platform.
Abstract: Mobile agents traverse the Internet, often on behalf of their users. Intelligent search agents access dynamic information in heterogeneous environments. The legal implications of the use of agents in such situations are not fully understood. In this paper a scenario in which a mobile agent searches a multimedia database on behalf of its user, is used to illustrate the legal and technical issues involved. Requirements related to identity management, integrity, traceability and availability are identified and discussed in the context of existing technology.
Abstract: Software agents extend the current, information-based Internet to include autonomous mobile processing. In most countries such processes, i.e. software agents are, however, without an explicit legal status. Many of the legal implications of their actions (e.g. gathering information, negotiating terms, performing transactions) are not well understood. One important characteristic of mobile software agents is that they roam the Internet: they often run on agent platforms of others. There often is no pre-existing relation between the ?owner? of a running agent?s process and the owner of the agent platform on which an agent process runs. When conflicts arise, the position of the agent platform owner is not clear: is he or she allowed to slow down the process or possibly remove it from the system? Can the interests of the user of the agent be protected? This article explores legal and technical perspectives in protecting the integrity and availability of software agents and agent platforms.
Abstract: A mobile agent is a process that can autonomously decide to move from one machine to another across the Internet. Migrating entails serialising code, data and state into an agent image, acquiring permission to move, `shipping' its image to another machine, and requesting activation on the new host. Each local network may have a specific policy with respect to the agents it is willing to accept and activate, and under which conditions. This paper is based on results of the ALIAS research project1 in which legal experts, computer scientists and AI experts aim to increase the understanding of the legal and technical implications of the use of mobile software agents A number of legal and technical issues concerning the implications of hosting mobile, possibly hostile agents are addressed.
Abstract: Mobile agents traverse the Internet, often on behalf of their users, moving to different sites with different characteristics. Mobile intelligent search agents traverse the Internet with the specific goal of accessing information. The sites they access are heterogeneous, often dynamic. Identity and integrity management, traceability and availability are major issues in this context. Liability, anonymity, and intellectual property are clearly related. These issues are discussed in the context of multimedia database search on behalf of users. The important technological and legal questions and implications related to this example are identified and discussed, in particular those related to underlying technology. Note: Related research will be pursued together with the Rechtbank Amsterdam in the context of the ACCESS ToKen project to start in October.
Abstract: Internet-scale computational grids are emerging from various research projects. Most notably are the US National Tech-nology Grid and the European Data Grid projects. One specific problem in realizing wide-area distributed computing environments as proposed in these projects, is effective management of the vast amount of resources that are made available within the grid environment. This paper proposes an agent-based approach to resource management in grid environments, and describes an agent infrastructure that could be integrated with the grid middleware layer. This agent infrastructure provides support for mobile agents that is scalable in the number of agents and the number of resources.
Abstract: Integrity of mobile agents in open environments in which no guarantees can be provided on the integrity of the hosts on which they run, is an open challenge. This paper presents a method with which tampering can be detected. This method is based on the notion of distributed trust; trust distributed over the hosts involved.
Abstract: The Internet provides a large-scale environment for (intelligent) software agents. Agents are autonomous (mobile) processes, capable of communication with other agents, interaction with the world, and adaptation to changes in their environment. Current approaches to support agents are not geared for large-scale settings. The near future holds thousands of agents, hosts, messages, and migratory movements of agents. These large-scale aspects require a new approach to facilitate the development of agent applications and support. AgentScape is a scalable agent-based distributed system described in this paper that aims at tackling these aspects.
Abstract: Coordination mechanisms need the proper support if they are to function within large-scale, heterogeneous multi-agent systems. This paper presents a life cycle model for mobile agents in which a number of different states and transitions are defined. An agent's state can be used to provide coordination mechanisms with useful status information, enabling these mechanisms to deal with realistic situations, in which agents are not always directly available, and the agent population possibly consists of many different types of agents
Abstract: Technical, commercial and legal issues strongly influence system administrators. Management of (distributed) systems with connections to outside users, e.g. via webservices or (mobile) software agents, may involve contracts. The challenge is to find simple, elegant and effective solutions to (automated) contract management systems, preferably as part of overall (distributed) management systems.
