Securing dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications

In this paper we present a novel mechanism for the protection of dynamic itineraries for mobile agent applications. Itineraries that are decided as the agent goes are essential in complex applications based on mobile agents, but no approach has been presented until now to protect them. We have conceived a cryptographic scheme for shielding dynamic itineraries from tampering, impersonation and disclosure. By using trust strategically, our scheme provides a balanced trade-off between flexibility and security. Our protection scheme has been thought always bearing in mind a feasible implementation, and thus facilitates the development of applications that make use of it. An example application based on a real healthcare scenario is also presented to show its operation

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Security in Mobile Multiagent Systems

This report contains the Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Security on Security of Mobile Multiagent Systems (SEMAS2002). The Workshop was held in Montreal, Canada as a satellite event to the 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents in 2001. The far reaching influence of the Internet has resulted in an increased interest in agent technologies, which are poised to play a key role in the implementation of successful Internet and WWW-based applications in the future. While there is still considerable hype concerning agent technologies, there is also an increasing awareness of the problems involved. In particular, that these applications will not be successful unless security issues can be adequately handled. Although there is a large body of work on cryptographic techniques that provide basic building-blocks to solve specific security problems, relatively little work has been done in investigating security in the multiagent system context. Related problems are secure communication between agents, implementation of trust models/authentication procedures or even reflections of agents on security mechanisms. The introduction of mobile software agents significantly increases the risks involved in Internet and WWW-based applications. For example, if we allow agents to enter our hosts or private networks, we must offer the agents a platform so that they can execute correctly but at the same time ensure that they will not have deleterious effects on our hosts or any other agents / processes in our network. If we send out mobile agents, we should also be able to provide guarantees about specific aspects of their behaviour, i.e., we are not only interested in whether the agents carry out-out their intended task correctly. They must defend themselves against attacks initiated by other agents, and survive in potentially malicious environments. Agent technologies can also be used to support network security. For example in the context of intrusion detection, intelligent guardian agents may be used to analyse the behaviour of agents on a firewall or intelligent monitoring agents can be used to analyse the behaviour of agents migrating through a network. Part of the inspiration for such multi-agent systems comes from primitive animal behaviour, such as that of guardian ants protecting their hill or from biological immune systems

Mathematical security models for multi-agent distributed systems

This thesis presents the developed taxonomy of the security threats in agent-based distributed systems. Based on this taxonomy, a set of theories is developed to facilitate analyzng the security threats of the mobile-agent systems. We propose the idea of using the developed security risk graph to model the system\u27s vulnerabilties

Emergent autonomous scientific research capabilities of large language models

Transformer-based large language models are rapidly advancing in the field of machine learning research, with applications spanning natural language, biology, chemistry, and computer programming. Extreme scaling and reinforcement learning from human feedback have significantly improved the quality of generated text, enabling these models to perform various tasks and reason about their choices. In this paper, we present an Intelligent Agent system that combines multiple large language models for autonomous design, planning, and execution of scientific experiments. We showcase the Agent's scientific research capabilities with three distinct examples, with the most complex being the successful performance of catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. Finally, we discuss the safety implications of such systems and propose measures to prevent their misuse.Comment: Version 1, April 11, 2023. 48 page

Autonomic Systems

An autonomic system is defined as self-configuring, self-optimizing, self-healing, and self-protecting. We implemented the Autonomic Cluster Management System (ACMS), a low overhead Java application designed to manage and load balance a cluster, while working at NASA GSFC. The ACMS is a mobile multi-agent system in which each agent is designed to fulfill a specific role. The agents collaborate and coordinate their activities in order to achieve system management goals. The ACMS is scalable and extensible to facilitate future development

Protecting mobile agents against malicious hosts.

by Sau-Koon Ng.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-112).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Evolution of the mobile agent paradigm --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- Terminology --- p.5Chapter 1.3 --- Beneficial aspects --- p.7Chapter 1.3.1 --- Autonomy --- p.7Chapter 1.3.2 --- Client customization --- p.8Chapter 1.3.3 --- Attendant and real time interactions --- p.8Chapter 1.4 --- Fundamental deployment bottleneck: security concern --- p.9Chapter 1.4.1 --- Risking the mobile agent hosts --- p.10Chapter 1.4.2 --- Risking the mobile agents --- p.11Chapter 1.4.3 --- The difficult problem --- p.12Chapter 1.5 --- Contribution of this thesis --- p.13Chapter 1.6 --- Structure of the thesis --- p.14Chapter 2 --- Understanding attacks and defense --- p.15Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.15Chapter 2.2 --- Understanding attacks --- p.16Chapter 2.2.1 --- The meaning of an attack --- p.16Chapter 2.2.2 --- An abstract model of attacks --- p.17Chapter 2.2.3 --- A survey of various attacks --- p.21Chapter 2.3 --- Understanding defense --- p.25Chapter 2.3.1 --- The meaning of defense --- p.25Chapter 2.3.2 --- Security requirements of defense --- p.26Chapter 2.3.3 --- A survey of protection schemes --- p.28Chapter 2.4 --- Concluding remarks --- p.40Chapter 3 --- Confidentiality in mobile agent systems --- p.42Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.42Chapter 3.2 --- Motivations --- p.43Chapter 3.2.1 --- Program comprehension --- p.44Chapter 3.2.2 --- Black-box testing --- p.45Chapter 3.3 --- Theory --- p.46Chapter 3.3.1 --- Assumptions --- p.46Chapter 3.3.2 --- Entropy of mobile agents --- p.46Chapter 3.3.3 --- Intention spreading by insertion --- p.49Chapter 3.3.4 --- Intention shrinking by splitting --- p.52Chapter 3.3.5 --- Nested spreading and shrinking --- p.55Chapter 3.4 --- Implementation possibilities --- p.55Chapter 3.4.1 --- Addition of irrelevant variables and conditional statements --- p.55Chapter 3.4.2 --- Splitting the cost function --- p.60Chapter 3.5 --- Security analysis --- p.63Chapter 3.5.1 --- Human inspection --- p.63Chapter 3.5.2 --- Automatic program comprehension --- p.64Chapter 3.6 --- Related work --- p.66Chapter 3.6.1 --- Time limited blackbox security --- p.66Chapter 3.6.2 --- Computing with encrypted function --- p.66Chapter 3.7 --- Applicability --- p.67Chapter 3.8 --- Further considerations --- p.68Chapter 3.8.1 --- Weaknesses --- p.68Chapter 3.8.2 --- Relationship with other approaches --- p.69Chapter 3.8.3 --- Further development --- p.71Chapter 3.9 --- Concluding remarks --- p.71Chapter 4 --- Anonymity in mobile agent systems --- p.73Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.73Chapter 4.2 --- Solutions to anonymity --- p.74Chapter 4.2.1 --- Mixing --- p.75Chapter 4.2.2 --- Group signatures --- p.76Chapter 4.3 --- Anonymous agents --- p.78Chapter 4.3.1 --- Anonymous connection --- p.78Chapter 4.3.2 --- Anonymous communication --- p.79Chapter 4.4 --- Concluding remarks --- p.84Chapter 5 --- Open issues --- p.86Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.86Chapter 5.2 --- Security issues --- p.86Chapter 5.2.1 --- Reachable problems --- p.87Chapter 5.2.2 --- Difficult problems --- p.88Chapter 5.3 --- Performance issues --- p.88Chapter 5.3.1 --- Complexity and strength --- p.89Chapter 5.3.2 --- An optimizing protocol --- p.90Chapter 5.4 --- Concluding remarks --- p.94Chapter 6 --- Conclusions --- p.9

Secure mobile multiagent systems in virtual marketplaces : a case study on comparison shopping

The growth of the Internet has deeply influenced our daily lives as well as our commercial structures. Agents and multiagent systems will play a major role in the further development of Internet-based applications like virtual marketplaces. However, there is an increasing awareness of the security problems involved. These systems will not be successful until their problems are solved. This report examines comparison shopping, a virtual marketplace scenario and an application domain for a mobile multiagent system, with respect to its security issues. The interests of the participants in the scenario, merchants and clients, are investigated. Potential security threats are identified and security objectives counteracting those threats are established. These objectives are refined into building blocks a secure multiagent system should provide. The building blocks are transformed into features of agents and executing platforms. Originating from this analysis, solutions for the actual implementation of these building blocks are suggested. It is pointed out under which assumptions it is possible to achieve the security goals, if at all

A Cluster-Based Distributed Hierarchical IDS for MANETs

Many attempts were made to secure wireless ad hoc networks, but due to special ad-hoc nature, which is lack of a fixed infrastructure and central management, finding an optimal and comprehensive security solution is still a research challenge

Using mobility and exception handling to achieve mobile agents that survive server crash failures

Mobile agent technology, when designed and used effectively, can minimize bandwidth consumption and autonomously provide a snapshot of the current context of a distributed system. Protecting mobile agents from server crashes is a challenging issue, since developers normally have no control over remote servers. Server crash failures can leave replicas, instable storage, unavailable for an unknown time period. Furthermore, few systems have considered the need for using a fault tolerant protocol among a group of collaborating mobile agents. This thesis uses exception handling to protect mobile agents from server crash failures. An exception model is proposed for mobile agents and two exception handler designs are investigated. The first exists at the server that created the mobile agent and uses a timeout mechanism. The second, the mobile shadow scheme, migrates with the mobile agent and operates at the previous server visited by the mobile agent. A case study application has been developed to compare the performance of the two exception handler designs. Performance results demonstrate that although the second design is slower it offers the smaller trip time when handling a server crash. Furthermore, no modification of the server environment is necessary. This thesis shows that the mobile shadow exception handling scheme reduces complexity for a group of mobile agents to survive server crashes. The scheme deploys a replica that monitors the server occupied by the master, at each stage of the itinerary. The replica exists at the previous server visited in the itinerary. Consequently, each group member is a single fault tolerant entity with respect to server crash failures. Other schemes introduce greater complexity and performance overheads since, for each stage of the itinerary, a group of replicas is sent to servers that offer an equivalent service. In addition, future research is established for fault tolerance in groups of collaborating mobile agents