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Time Limited Blackbox Security: Protecting Mobile Agents From Malicious Hosts

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Mobile Agents and Security

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1419))

Abstract

In this paper, an approach to partially solve one of the most difficult aspects of security of mobile agents systems is presented, the problem of malicious hosts. This problem consists in the possibility of attacks against a mobile agent by the party that maintains an agent system node, a host. The idea to solve this problem is to create a blackbox out of an original agent. A blackbox is an agent that performs the same work as the original agent, but is of a different structure. This difference allows to assume a certain agent protection time interval, during which it is impossible for an attacker to discover relevant data or to manipulate the execution of the agent. After that time interval the agent and some associated data get invalid and the agent cannot migrate or interact anymore, which prevents the exploitation of attacks after the protection interval.

This work was funded by the German Research Community (DFG)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Parallel and Distributed High-Performance Systems (IPVR), University of Stuttgart, Germany

    Fritz Hohl

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  1. Fritz Hohl
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-5110, USA

    Giovanni Vigna

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hohl, F. (1998). Time Limited Blackbox Security: Protecting Mobile Agents From Malicious Hosts. In: Vigna, G. (eds) Mobile Agents and Security. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1419. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-68671-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-68671-1_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-64792-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68671-2

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