Optimal assignment of mobile agents for software authorization and protection

Abstract

In this paper, a model for software authorization and protection in mobile code systems is proposed. In the model, a software is partitioned into objects, called mobile agents, and the privileges to access these agents are separated and distributed to the user's local system and a number of trusted servers called trusted computational proxies. The execution of a program (software) is conducted by cooperation of the agents and the proxies that contain them. Two agents are dependent if there is a message passing between them. To reduce the risk of software being attacked,dependent agents are distributed to different proxies. In this way, if a proxy is compromized, minimal information of the software will be disclosed. Methods for assigning agents to proxies are also proposed to minimize, under the security constraints, computation load of the proxies as well as communication load between the user's local system and proxies. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.