A specialised architecture for embedding trust evaluation capabilities in intelligent mobile agents

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to enhancing mobile agent protection. Mobile agents may come under threat from malicious hosts and unscrupulous agents. In an effort to reduce risk for mobile agents and improve the robustness of mobile agent systems - the proposed trust-based approach could be used to augment existing mechanisms aimed at mobile agent protection. The approach involves the development of a component that embeds an intelligent trust evaluation capability in a participating agent. This allows user agents to delegate the task of trust evaluation to specialised evaluator agents. These evaluator agents are a simple add-on to mobile agent systems - eliminating the need to redevelop mobile agent systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.