@article {17814,
	title = {Secure agents},
	journal = {Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence},
	volume = {37},
	year = {2003},
	month = {2003///},
	pages = {169 - 235},
	abstract = {With the rapid proliferation of software agents, there comes an increased need for agents to ensure that they do not provide data and/or services to unauthorized users. We first develop an abstract definition of what it means for an agent to preserve data/action security. Most often, this requires an agent to have knowledge that is impossible to acquire {\textendash} hence, we then develop approximate security checks that take into account, the fact that an agent usually has incomplete/approximate beliefs about other agents. We develop two types of security checks {\textendash} static ones that can be checked prior to deploying the agent, and dynamic ones that are executed at run time. We prove that a number of these problems are undecidable, but under certain conditions, they are decidable and (our definition of) security can be guaranteed. Finally, we propose a language within which the developer of an agent can specify her security needs, and present provably correct algorithms for static/dynamic security verification.},
	doi = {10.1023/A:1020233522878},
	author = {Bonatti,P. A and Kraus,S. and V.S. Subrahmanian}
}
