A Secure and Auto-configurable Environment for Mobile Agents in Ubiquitous Computing Scenarios

The increased heterogeneity and dynamism of new computing paradigms and especially of ubiquitous computing models is boosting the need for auto-configurable systems. In these new scenarios, heterogeneity and dynamism are inherent properties and applications are built by aggregating distributed information and services that are not under the control of a single entity. Furthermore, the current trend towards distributed computing poses important problems related to the need to transmit large amounts of data between the distributed nodes of the computing system; the control over the information; and the flexibility to adapt to heterogeneous client requirements. These characteristics are difficult to manage by traditional computing models. For these reasons, the mobile agent paradigm is gaining momentum and the interest of researchers and industry in this paradigm is increasing. In this paper we present a solution to provide a secure and auto-configurable environment for mobile agents in ubiquitous computing scenarios. Our approach is based on two main building blocks: trusted platforms and profiles.