Issues in a Mobile Agent-based Multimedia Retrieval Scenario

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.

Mecanismo para evitar ataques por confabulación basados en code passing

Los agentes móviles son entidades software formadas por código, datos, itinerario y estado, que pueden migrar de host en host autónomamente ejecutando su código. A pesar de sus ventajas, los aspectos de seguridad restringen enormemente el uso de código móvil. La protección del agente ante ataques de hosts maliciosos, es el problema de seguridad más difícil de resolver en los sistemas de agentes móviles. En particular, los ataques por confabulación han sido poco estudiados en la literatura. Este paper presenta un mecanismo de protección ante ataques por confabulación basados en code passing. Nuestra propuesta es un Multi-Code Agent que contiene diferentes variantes del código para cada host. Una Trusted Third Party es la responsable de proporcionar la información para extraer cada variante, y de tomar referencias temporales que se usarán para veri car la coherencia temporal

A middleware framework for secure mobile grid services.

Wong, Sze Wing.Thesis submitted in: October 2007.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-180).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Abstract --- p.i論文摘要 --- p.iiiAcknowledgements --- p.ivChapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Contributions of this thesis --- p.3Chapter 1.2 --- Thesis structure --- p.4Chapter 2 --- Background --- p.6Chapter 2.1 --- Web Services --- p.6Chapter 2.2 --- Grid Computing --- p.8Chapter 2.2.1 --- Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) --- p.9Chapter 2.2.2 --- Grid Services --- p.9Chapter 2.3 --- Globus Toolkit --- p.10Chapter 2.3.1 --- Components of Globus Toolkit 4 --- p.11Chapter 2.3.2 --- Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) --- p.13Chapter 2.4 --- Mobile Agent --- p.13Chapter 2.4.1 --- Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) --- p.14Chapter 2.5 --- Java Agent Development Framework (JADE) --- p.15Chapter 2.5.1 --- JADE-S --- p.17Chapter 3 --- Research Issues in Mobile Grid Services --- p.18Chapter 3.1 --- Mobile Grid Services --- p.18Chapter 3.2 --- Service Migration --- p.20Chapter 3.2.1 --- Using Mobile Agent with Weak Mobility --- p.20Chapter 3.2.2 --- Using Mobile Agent with Strong Mobility --- p.21Chapter 3.2.3 --- Using Snapshots --- p.22Chapter 3.2.4 --- Summary --- p.23Chapter 3.3 --- Service Sharing and Discovery --- p.24Chapter 3.3.1 --- Centralized Model --- p.24Chapter 3.3.2 --- Division into clusters --- p.25Chapter 3.3.3 --- Using Web Services Protocols --- p.26Chapter 3.3.4 --- Summary --- p.27Chapter 3.4 --- Security --- p.28Chapter 3.4.1 --- Resource control and accounting --- p.28Chapter 3.4.2 --- Using delegation document --- p.30Chapter 3.4.3 --- Summary --- p.31Chapter 4 --- Mobile Grid Service Framework --- p.32Chapter 4.1 --- Proposed Framework Overview --- p.32Chapter 4.1.1 --- Service Migration --- p.33Chapter 4.1.2 --- Service Sharing and Discovery --- p.34Chapter 4.1.3 --- Security --- p.34Chapter 4.2 --- Overall architecture --- p.35Chapter 4.3 --- Components of Mobile Grid Services --- p.36Chapter 4.3.1 --- Agent Manager --- p.37Chapter 4.3.2 --- Task Agent --- p.38Chapter 4.3.3 --- Monitor Agent --- p.39Chapter 4.4 --- Resource Information Service --- p.40Chapter 4.5 --- Scenario of Mobile Grid Service Execution --- p.41Chapter 5 --- MGSAPI --- p.43Chapter 5.1 --- API design --- p.43Chapter 5.2 --- API Implementation --- p.45Chapter 5.2.1 --- Overview --- p.45Chapter 5.2.2 --- Agent Manager Class --- p.46Chapter 5.2.3 --- Task Agent Templates --- p.52Chapter 5.2.4 --- Configurable Monitor Agent --- p.57Chapter 5.2.5 --- Resource Information Service --- p.61Chapter 5.2.6 --- Example Application --- p.66Chapter 6 --- Security Support for Mobile Grid Services --- p.68Chapter 6.1 --- Overview --- p.68Chapter 6.2 --- Authentication and Authorization --- p.70Chapter 6.3 --- Message Integrity and Confidentiality --- p.72Chapter 6.4 --- Permissions on Agents --- p.74Chapter 6.5 --- Security facilities in MGS API --- p.76Chapter 6.5.1 --- Major modifications for MGS components --- p.77Chapter 6.5.2 --- MGS Security Libraries --- p.79Chapter 6.5.3 --- MGS Security Configuration --- p.81Chapter 7 --- Agent Protection for Mobile Grid Services --- p.83Chapter 7.1 --- Overview --- p.83Chapter 7.2 --- Major modifications --- p.86Chapter 7.2.1 --- Exempting checking for executions on home host --- p.86Chapter 7.2.2 --- New definition of stage --- p.87Chapter 7.2.3 --- Extra operations in Task Agent and Agent Manager --- p.88Chapter 7.2.4 --- Handling of attack --- p.88Chapter 7.3 --- Implementation details --- p.91Chapter 7.3.1 --- Agent Manager --- p.91Chapter 7.3.2 --- Task Agent --- p.97Chapter 7.3.3 --- Monitor Agent --- p.101Chapter 7.3.4 --- Checker --- p.102Chapter 7.4 --- Discussions --- p.108Chapter 7.4.1 --- Against modification of code and data --- p.108Chapter 7.4.2 --- Against masquerade --- p.108Chapter 7.4.3 --- Against fake information in trace --- p.109Chapter 7.4.4 --- Against escape from re-execution --- p.109Chapter 7.4.5 --- Against collaboration of different hosts --- p.109Chapter 7.4.6 --- Detection of malicious host --- p.110Chapter 7.4.7 --- Weaknesses --- p.110Chapter 8 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.111Chapter 8.1 --- Experimental Setup --- p.111Chapter 8.2 --- MGS Performance --- p.117Chapter 8.2.1 --- Experiment details --- p.112Chapter 8.2.2 --- Experiment results --- p.113Chapter 8.2.3 --- Discussions --- p.116Chapter 8.3 --- MGS Overheads --- p.117Chapter 8.3.1 --- Experiment details --- p.117Chapter 8.3.2 --- Experiment results --- p.119Chapter 8.3.3 --- Discussions --- p.123Chapter 8.4 --- Agent Protection Overheads --- p.124Chapter 8.4.1 --- Experiment details --- p.124Chapter 8.4.2 --- Experiment results --- p.125Chapter 8.4.3 --- Discussions --- p.128Chapter 9 --- Conclusion and Future Works --- p.130Appendix A Administrator Guide for MGS API --- p.132Chapter A.l --- Installation of MGS API --- p.132Chapter A.1.1 --- Installation of pre-requisites --- p.132Chapter A.1.2 --- Installation of MGS API library --- p.135Chapter A.2 --- Setup of MGS platform --- p.135Chapter A.2.1 --- Setup of JADE platform --- p.135Chapter A.2.2 --- Setup of Globus containers --- p.136Appendix B Developer Guide for MGS API --- p.137Chapter B.1 --- Steps of developing a Mobile Grid Service --- p.137Chapter B.1.1 --- Design Mobile Grid Service --- p.137Chapter B.1.2 --- Define WSDL --- p.138Chapter B.1.3 --- Implement the service --- p.138Chapter B.1.4 --- Configure deployment in WSDD --- p.138Chapter B.1.5 --- Compile and deploy the service --- p.139Chapter B.2 --- Mobile Grid Service Implementation --- p.140Chapter B.2.1 --- Implement Task Agent --- p.140Chapter B.2.2 --- Implement Monitor Agent (optional) --- p.143Chapter B.2.3 --- Implement Agent Manager --- p.144Chapter B.3 --- Convert tool --- p.146Chapter B.4 --- Service configuration --- p.147Chapter B.4.1 --- TaskSetting object --- p.147Chapter B.4.2 --- MonitorSetting object --- p.147Chapter B.4.3 --- MGS Configuration file --- p.148Chapter B.4.4 --- Configuration for Resource Information Service --- p.149Chapter B.4.5 --- Globus-side security configuration of the service --- p.151Chapter B.5 --- MGS Configuration Helper --- p.151Chapter B.5.1 --- “Main Container´ح Panel --- p.152Chapter B.5.2 --- “Container´ح Panel --- p.154Chapter B.5.3 --- “Service´ح Panel --- p.156Chapter B.6 --- Interface details --- p.158Chapter B.6.1 --- Package mgs.manager --- p.158Chapter B.6.2 --- Package mgs.monitor --- p.165Chapter B.6.3 --- Package mgs.task --- p.167Chapter B.6.4 --- Package mgs.ftsFramework --- p.174Bibliography --- p.176Publications --- p.18