Applying mobile agents to implement resilient authentication in networks

by Fan, Xiaobo

ii Abstract Authentication techniques for a large-scale oetwork are essential for the boorning applications of e-commerce and e-business. In this thesis, authentication techniques for a larger-scale network are discussed. In-deep discussions on the independent path technique are presented. An authentication protocol based on path independence is proposed. The Approximation algorithms for solving the bounded independent path problem are introduced. The aigorithm impIementations are done on two mobile code environments. One is built with Java, and the environment implernentation gives a clew picture of how a mobile code environment is built in Java and based its intemal security on Java security. The other is a commercial mobile agent platform, Grasshopper. The algorithm implementation on Grasshopper gives a skeleton of using Grasshopper for distributed applications on a large network. Key Words: security, authentication, public key certificate, certifiicate path, independent path, mobile agent, Java RMI, Java security.