Security on MASs with XML Security Specifications

Abstract

In the past, multi-agent systems were used in proprietary environments. Nowadays, these systems have been used broadly in open distributed networks, such as e-commerce applications for Internet. An environment such as the Internet cannot be considered a safe place. Thus, multi-agent systems should have security mechanisms, e.g. confidentiality and integrity. The XML security specifications are standards that are based on XML and provide security mechanisms. They include: XML digital signature for digital signature; XML encryption for cryptography; XML key management specification for public key infrastructure. Agents may use a FIPA (foundation for intelligent physical agents) standard called RDF(resource description framework), which is a message content standard in XML language. Using this standard, agents can communicate exchanging XML messages, but these messages are not secure. In this article, we propose a secure communication model for agents based on RDF and the XML security specifications