Agent-oriented public key infrastructure for multi-agent E-service

Abstract

Agent is autonomous software that mediates e-service for human on the Internet. The acceptance of agent-mediated e-service (AMES) is very slow for the lacking of security management infrastructure for multi-agent system. Therefore we proposed an agent-oriented public key infrastructure (APKI) for multi-agent e-service. In this APKI, a taxonomy of digital certificates are generated, stored, verified, and revoked to satisfy different access and delegation control purposes. Agent identity certificate was designed for agent's authentication whereas attributed and agent authorization certificates were proposed for agent's authorization and delegation. Using these digital certificates, we establish agent trust relationships on the Cyberspace. A trusted agent-mediated e-service scenario will be shown to demonstrate the feasibility of our APKI.