Migration control for mobile agents based on passport and visa

Research on mobile agents has attracted much attention as this paradigm has demonstrated great potential for the next-generation e-commerce. Proper solutions to security-related problems become key factors in the successful deployment of mobile agents in e-commerce systems. We propose the use of passport and visa (P/V) for securing mobile agent migration across communities based on the SAFER (secure agent fabrication, evolution, and roaming) for e-commerce framework. P/V not only serve as up-to-date digital credentials for agent-host authentication, but also provide effective security mechanisms for online communities to control mobile agent migration. Protection for mobile agents, network hosts, and online communities is enhanced using P/V. We discuss the design issues in detail and evaluate the implementation of the proposed system. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.