A secure proxy signature protocol for agent-based M-commerce applications

In this paper, we present a novel Agent-based Threshold Proxy Signcryption (ATPS) Protocol, which enables an agent owner to securely delegate his signing capabilities to a mobile agent so. that the mobile agent can sign documents on behalf of its owner. The protocol incorporates three novel contributions: a Proxy Key Generation Method, a Threshold Proxy Signcryption Scheme and a Proxy Signature Verification Method. The most notable feature of the protocol is that it enables a mobile agent to securely, efficiently and autonomously sign documents on the owner's behalf in a remote host with non-repudiation and fairness assurance for both the owner and the remote host. The security of the proposed protocol is analyzed and its performance against other related work is evaluated.