Security in a mobile agent system

This paper describes a security architecture for the Mansion mobile agent system. Mansion is a logical framework designed to support large-scale heterogeneous mobile agent applications. Mansion is implemented as a multilayered middleware system in which the lowest layer provides functionality that is common to most mobile agent systems and higher layers become increasingly application aware. The security architecture presented in this paper provides secure agent communication, secure mobile agent transport and startup, and secure auditing of all changes made to agents. The system uses self-certifying names for authenticating principals in the system and provides mechanisms to control information flow.