Mechanisms for Secure and Robust Agent-Based Distributed Computing

A mobile agent is a program capable of migrating autonomously from

node to node, to perform computation on behalf of a human user. The

mobile agent paradigm can play a significant role in current and future

network-centric applications, especially in the context of the Next

Generation Internet. Security and robustness concerns about mobile

agents are currently identified as the biggest obstacle preventing the

widespread deployment and use of agent-based applications.

The primary objective of the proposed research is to investigate security

and robustness issues in building a mobile agent programming system,

in an open distributed environment, such as the Internet. The proposed

research addresses issues related to programming primitives and

system-level mechanisms for building agent-based applications. The

approach presented in this proposal is based on supporting the mobile

agent paradigm using mobile objects. This raises a number of

research challenges related to protection of host resources, protection

of mobile agents, and secrecy and authenticity of information carried

by agents. It also requires mechanisms for remote monitoring and

control of agents, and recovery from failures. Another related challenge

to be addressed by this effort is in building scalable mechanisms for

naming and locating objects in the network. The proposed research will be

based on the Java language and will use cryptographic techniques to design

protocols to solve several of the security problems. The facilities

provided by Java (such as object serialization, reflection, security

features, etc.) will be used in devising mechanisms for agent mobility and

supporting protection domains for agent execution on remote hosts.

A prototype implementation of a mobile agent system will be built to

serve both as a research infrastructure as well as a demonstration

of the mechanisms to be developed during this effort. The system

will be evaluated using both theoretical and experimental analyses.