A Weighting Scheme for Security Patterns Using Mobile Agents

The theme of this book is an examination of securitypatterns for mobile agents systems and a uniqueweighting scheme for security patterns. It ismotivated by the trend within software engineering,artificial intelligence to develop systems, whichpossess disconnects between security integration andsystem practicality. Security experts within softwareengineering are primarily concerned with the manyfacets of system security, while the mobileagent/distributed system developer is primarilyconcerned with building small commercial or academicprototypes systems that work for a particularresearch problem. This has led to the contemporaryproblem of ad-hoc mobile agent/distributed systemdevelopment in disjointed pieces in which security istypically considered as an afterthought not asaforethought. Security patterns are a unique way tobridge the gap between practical secure systems,specialized prototype systems within theinterdisciplinary fields of software engineering, andartificial intelligence. These security patternsallow the community to exploit the knowledge andexperience of sophisticated members of theircommunity as well as provide a framework for discussion.