MagicNET: Secure communication methodology for mobile agents

Most of the current research and development results, dealing with authentication of mobile agents, describe solutions that address only agent-to-platform authentication. These solutions assign privileges to agents so that they can be executed and then, by using the same privileges, also to communicate with other agents running on the same platform. They do not address broader agent-to-agent communication security requirements. Moreover, communication protocols are not based on any standards, what increases the possibilities of communications between benign and malicious agents. In this paper we describe agent-to-agent secure communication methodology that guarantees authenticated, authorized and confidential communication between agents. We use FIPA ACL standard for effective and interoperable communication in our agent-based system.