A modularized electronic payment system for agent-based e-commerce

With the explosive growth of the Internet, electronic-commerce (e-commerce) is an increasingly important segment of commercial activities on the web. The Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming (SAFER) architecture was proposed to further facilitate e-commerce using agent technology. In this paper, the electronic payment aspect of SAFER will be explored. The Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol and E-Cash were selected as the bases for the electronic payment system implementation. The various modules of the payment system and how they interface with each other are shown. An extensible implementation done using JavaTM will also be elaborated. This application incorporates agent roaming functionality and the ability to conduct e-commerce transactions and carry out intelligent e-payment procedures

Next-Generation EU DataGrid Data Management Services

We describe the architecture and initial implementation of the next-generation of Grid Data Management Middleware in the EU DataGrid (EDG) project. The new architecture stems out of our experience and the users requirements gathered during the two years of running our initial set of Grid Data Management Services. All of our new services are based on the Web Service technology paradigm, very much in line with the emerging Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA). We have modularized our components and invested a great amount of effort towards a secure, extensible and robust service, starting from the design but also using a streamlined build and testing framework. Our service components are: Replica Location Service, Replica Metadata Service, Replica Optimization Service, Replica Subscription and high-level replica management. The service security infrastructure is fully GSI-enabled, hence compatible with the existing Globus Toolkit 2-based services; moreover, it allows for fine-grained authorization mechanisms that can be adjusted depending on the service semantics.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla,Ca, USA, March 2003 8 pages, LaTeX, the file contains all LaTeX sources - figures are in the directory "figures

On the security of software-defined next-generation cellular networks

In the recent years, mobile cellular networks are ndergoing fundamental changes and many established concepts are being revisited. Future 5G network architectures will be designed to employ a wide range of new and emerging technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). These create new virtual network elements each affecting the logic of the network management and operation, enabling the creation of new generation services with substantially higher data rates and lower delays. However, new security challenges and threats are also introduced. Current Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks are not able to accommodate these new trends in a secure and reliable way. At the same time, novel 5G systems have proffered invaluable opportunities of developing novel solutions for attack prevention, management, and recovery. In this paper, first we discuss the main security threats and possible attack vectors in cellular networks. Second, driven by the emerging next-generation cellular networks, we discuss the architectural and functional requirements to enable appropriate levels of security

Security for Grid Services

Grid computing is concerned with the sharing and coordinated use of diverse resources in distributed "virtual organizations." The dynamic and multi-institutional nature of these environments introduces challenging security issues that demand new technical approaches. In particular, one must deal with diverse local mechanisms, support dynamic creation of services, and enable dynamic creation of trust domains. We describe how these issues are addressed in two generations of the Globus Toolkit. First, we review the Globus Toolkit version 2 (GT2) approach; then, we describe new approaches developed to support the Globus Toolkit version 3 (GT3) implementation of the Open Grid Services Architecture, an initiative that is recasting Grid concepts within a service oriented framework based on Web services. GT3's security implementation uses Web services security mechanisms for credential exchange and other purposes, and introduces a tight least-privilege model that avoids the need for any privileged network service.Comment: 10 pages; 4 figure