A Security Model for Aglets*

By Günter Karjoth
IBM Corporation, Zurich Research Laboratory

Danny B. Lange and Mitsuru Oshima
IBM Research Division, Tokyo Research Laboratory

Abstract

Mobile agents offer a new paradigm for distributed computation, but their potential benefits must be weighed against the very real security threats they pose. These threats originate not just in malicious agents but in malicious hosts as well.

In this article, we present our security model for the IBM Aglets Workbench, a Java-based environment for building mobile agent applications. We detail both the security model and the corresponding security architecture that represents a framework for the inclusion of security services in future releases of the AWB. This work therefore represents an additional step toward the comprehensive security model required for widespread commercial adoption of mobile agent systems to occur.

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*IEEE Internet Computing, Vol. 1, No. 4, July - August 1997

About the Authors:

Günter Karjoth is a research staff member at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he is currently working on access control issues in distributed object systems. His research interest is in the modeling of distributed systems, their validation, and their implementation. He received his Ph.D. and his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Readers may contact Karjoth at IBM Research Division, Zurich Research Laboratory, Säumerstr. 4, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland, gka@zurich.ibm.com .

Danny B. Lange recently became director in the Agents Division at General Magic, Inc. Prior to joining General Magic, he was a visiting scientist at IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, where he invented the Java aglet and was the chief architect of IBM's Aglets Workbench. His research interest includes mobile network agents, object-oriented frameworks, and object visualization. He received a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Computer Science from the Technical University of Denmark.

Mitsuru Oshima is a researcher at IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory. He is the head implementor and co-designer of the Java Aglet API. His research interest includes object-oriented frameworks, component architecture, and distributed objects. He received his M.S. degree in control engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.




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