Chapter List

Part Overview

The two chapters in Part III consider software security issues arising in future mobile systems. Multi-agent systems, based on agents, that is, pieces of software that can act autonomously, appear to be a promising technology in a variety of application domains, including middleware for mobile systems. When agents themselves are mobile, a variety of significant security issues arise, which are the focus of Chapter 12.

Chapter 13 is concerned with the major security issues associated with the use of mobile code within the context of the mobile phone, including Software Defined Radio. Whilst some of the security issues are the same as for the existing PC environment, new issues arose because of the need for mobile devices to have very simple user interfaces and yet retain the reliability which their users need and expect of them.

The agent paradigm is currently attracting much research. A mobile agent is a particular type of agent with the ability to migrate from one host to another where it can resume its execution. In this chapter, we consider security issues that need to be addressed before multi-agent systems in general, and mobile agents in particular, can be a viable solution for a broad range of commercial applications. We do this through considering the implications of the characteristics given to agents and general properties of open multi-agent systems. We...