1. DRM and Agents Digital Rights Management and Multi Agent Systems Ciprian Caloianu

2. DRM and Agents Research Goals Design a strong security layer for multi agent systems Use widely accepted standards like XML and ODRL Strive to be general but not overly complex

3. DRM and Agents Description The security system will act like a wrapper around agents. Its role is to filter incoming and outgoing messages based on a set of rules (based on ODRL syntax) FOR MORE INFO ON ODRL http://odrl.net

4. DRM and Agents Why make a new security system? There are many encryption and authentication systems already – this system won’t replace any of these but work with them. There are some permissions systems, but most are specific to certain applications – file systems, system access, DRM for media distribution (ODRL, XRML), etc. There aren’t any general agent permission systems implemented using widely accepted standards like XML

5. DRM and Agents XML DRM Standards Right now there are two main standards: XRML –Commercial standard (requires fees if used for profit) –Used more in industry than academia ODRL (Open Digital Rights Management) –Free to use, even in commercial applications –Open standard –Used more in the academia than in industry

6. DRM and Agents Requirements This layer is only a security filter, you still need all the other parts of a multi agent system: Authentication / Encryption Communication layer Message format translation (optional) Agent brain

7. DRM and Agents ODRL Agreement The standard way to grant certain permissions to a party to use an asset Both the asset and the party are agents Permissions can be anything from commands to information messages

8. DRM and Agents ODRL Structure Airplane 245B John Lane air controller

9. DRM and Agents A message based system Asset represents the “receiver” Party represents the “sender” Permission represents what kind of messages are allowed to be passed from sender to receiver

10. DRM and Agents John Dower Airport Units 2004-4-1T0:0:0 2004-4-10T23:59:59

11. DRM and Agents Contexts Are used to better identify an asset or party They can refer to groups of agents or specific ones Very flexible

12. DRM and Agents Hierarchical permissions Admirals -> Generals -> Colonels -> Soldiers It will drastically reduce the number of agreements that need to be written making it more efficient and less prone to errors It scales very well for large number of agents.

13. DRM and Agents Security Agent Needed for dynamic changes of the agreements Airport example: security agent may check the work schedule of every employee and update the permissions for the next day More secure as only one agent needs to have access to the security data