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Probing Attacks on Multi-Agent Systems Using Electronic Institutions

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Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies IX (DALT 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7169))

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Abstract

In open multi-agent systems, electronic institutions are used to form the interaction environment by defining social norms for group behaviour. However, as this paper shows, electronic institutions can be turned against agents to breach their security in a variety of ways. We focus our attention on probing attacks using electronic institutions specified in the Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC) language. LCC is a choreography language used to define electronic institutions in agent systems. A probing attack is an attack against the confidentiality of information systems. In this paper, we redefine the probing attack in conventional network security to be applicable in a multi-agent system domain, governed by electronic institutions. We introduce different probing attacks against LCC interaction models and suggest a secrecy analysis framework for these interactions. The proposed framework could be used to detect the possibility of certain probing attacks and to identify some forms of malicious electronic institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Informatics School, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton St., Edinburgh, UK

    Shahriar Bijani, David Robertson & David Aspinall

  2. Computer Science Dept., Shahed University, Persian Gulf Highway, Tehran, Iran

    Shahriar Bijani

Authors
  1. Shahriar Bijani
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  2. David Robertson
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  3. David Aspinall
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of computer and Communication Sciences, Wakayama University, 930 Sakaedani, 640-8510, Wakayama, Japan

    Chiaki Sakama

  2. School of Computer Science and Information Technology, RMIT University, PO Box GPO Box 2476V, 3001, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Sebastian Sardina

  3. Department of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen, Meston Building, AB24 3UE, Aberdeen, UK

    Wamberto Vasconcelos

  4. Department of Information Science, University of Otago, PO Box 56, 9054, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Michael Winikoff

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Bijani, S., Robertson, D., Aspinall, D. (2012). Probing Attacks on Multi-Agent Systems Using Electronic Institutions. In: Sakama, C., Sardina, S., Vasconcelos, W., Winikoff, M. (eds) Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies IX. DALT 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7169. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29113-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29113-5_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-29112-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-29113-5

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