Design and Implementation of Inter-operable and Secure Agent Migration Protocol

Mobile agent technology is an active research topic and has found its uses in various diverse areas ranging from simple personal assistance to complex distributed big data systems. Its usage permits offline and autonomous execution as compared to classical distributed systems. The free roaming nature of agents makes it prone to several security threats during its transit state, with an added overhead in its interoperability among different types of platforms. To address these problems, both software and hardware based approaches have been proposed to ensure protection at various transit points. However, these approaches do not ensure interoperability and protection to agents during transit over a channel, simultaneously. In this regard, an agent requires a trustworthy, interoperable, and adaptive protocol for secure migration. In this paper, to answer these research issues, we first analyse security flaws in existing agent protection frameworks. Second, we implemented a novel migration architecture which is: 1) fully inter-operable compliance to the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) and 2) trustworthy based on Computing Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The proposed approach is validated by testing on software TPM of IBM, JSR321, and jTPMTools as TPM and Trusted Computing Software Stack (TSS) interfaces, JADE-agent framework and 7Mobility Service (JIPMS). Validation is also performed on systems bearing physical TPM-chips. Moreover, some packages of JIPMS are also modified by embedding our proposed approach into their functions. Our performance results show that our approach merely adds an execution overhead during the binding and unbinding phases

Towards a New Model to Secure IoT-based Smart Home Mobile Agents using Blockchain Technology

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an indispensable part of the actual Internet and continues to extend deeper into the daily lives of people, offering distributed and critical services. Mobile agents are widely used in the context of IoT and due to the possibility of transmitting their execution status from one device to another in an IoT network, they offer many advantages such as reducing network load, encapsulating protocols, exceeding network latency, etc. Also, Blockchain Technology is growing rapidly allowing for the addition of an approved security layer in many areas. Security issues related to mobile agent migration can be resolved with the use of Blockchain. This paper aims to demonstrate how Blockchain Technology can be used to secure mobile agents in the context of the IoT using Ethereum and a Smart Contract. The transactions within the Blockchain are used to detect the malevolent mobile agents that could infiltrate the IoT systems. The proposed model aims to provide a secure migration of mobile agents to ensure security and protect the IoT applications against malevolent agents. The case of a smart home with multiple applications is applied to verify the proposed solution. The model presented in this paper could be extended to a wider selection of IoT systems outside of the smart home.

Tailored fabrication of TiO2@carbon nanofibers composites via foaming agent migration

Based on the merits and demerits of conventional methods for fabricating TiO2@carbon nanofibers (TiO2@CNFs) composites, the composites were prepared via a foaming-assisted electrospinning strategy and subsequent thermal treatment.