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It is widely agreed that mobile agents in conjunction with WWW technology will provide the technical foundation for future electronic commerce. A prerequisite for the use of mobile agents in a commercial environment is, that agents have to be executed reliable, independent of communication and node failure. In this paper, we first present a recently proposed fault-tolerant protocol to ensure the exactly-once execution of an agent by monitoring the agents execution. With this protocol, agents are performed in so-called stages. Each stage consists of a number of nodes. One of these nodes executes the agent while the other nodes monitor the execution. The main focus of this paper is the construction of stages. In particular, we will investigate how the number of nodes per stage influence the probability of an agent to be blocked due to failures and which nodes should be selected when forming a stage to minimize the overhead caused by the protocol. Also a flexible itinerary concept is proposed that gives agent systems the freedom to do various kinds of optimizations when determining the next node and constructing a stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic Commerce is a field of application that is distributed by nature where different parties share information and work concurrently and cooperatively on objects, potentially distributed over a large scale network like the Internet. In such an environment client/server architectures reach the limit of their capability. Non-centralized distributed architectures with object and code migration are more suitable. This paper presents a distributed extension to Java named Dejay. Its aim is to simplify the design and development of such distributed systems. Concurrency and distribution are expressed using the same mechanism, virtual processors. These processors represent one thread of control. They contain groups of objects and manage their synchronization and migration over distributed networks. It is used as an implementation language for distributed electronic commerce applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a secure intelligent trade agent system is developed. In this system, an intelligent trade agent can be authenticated and supplied certain authorized agent execution environment for it to run by a host. The owner of a malicious intelligent trade agent is easily dug out. A host can only legally modify the information relative to it in the agent because the owner of the agent can be conscious of any little unauthorized modification made by any host. The secure intelligent trade agent system has two extra features: 1. The payment in the system is anonymous to servers (e.g., shops, companies). 2. It is convenient for the system to charge. So far, any security weakness in the secure intelligent trade agent system has not been found yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a flexible distributed transactional workflow environment based on an extensible object-oriented framework built around class libraries, application programming interfaces, and shared services. The purpose of this environment is to support a range of EC-like business activities including the support of financial transactions and electronic contracts. This environment has as its aim to provide key infrastructure services for mediating and monitoring electronic commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we identify security threats and requirements for software agent systems in the context of an electronic market. A short description of our own agent system AMETAS is given. It provides an infrastructure for a general multi-purpose agent system. We explain which security facilities need to be employed and how some of them were implemented in AMETAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents market-based workflow management, a novel approach to workflow specification and execution which regards activities contained in a workflow as goods traded on an electronic market. Information about expected cost and execution time is considered for activity specifications, and is used at runtime to execute workflows such that actual cost and execution times are balanced and optimized. To that end, task assignment uses a bidding protocol, in which each eligible processing entity specifies at which price and in which time interval he/she can execute the activity. The winner of a specific bidding process is requested to execute the activity, and earns the amount specified in the corresponding bid. Market-based workflow management thus not only allows to optimize workflow executions with respect to execution time and overall cost; but the trading of activities also represents an incentive for processing entities to engage in a workflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the application of a new variant of high-level Petri nets, the so-called SGML nets, for modeling business processes in the area of Internet-based commerce. SGML nets are designed to capture the process of generating and manipulating structured documents based on the international standard SGML. Since the currently dominant document standards on the Internet are HTML (an SGML application) and XML (a subset of SGML), SGML nets offer an elegant way to integrate central aspects of Electronic Commerce applications, such as the generation of online product catalogs, processing of online orders, and electronic document interchange between companies, into a unified formal workflow model. The article gives an introduction to the central concepts of SGML nets and includes an example of their application from the area of online order processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barter is a scalable, highly-available and efficient electronic commerce system that facilitates digital content trade over an open network. Barter is designed to operate over a large-scale, global and heterogeneous communication network infrastructure. The barter protocols address two vital requirements from an electronic commerce system, neglected from existing systems: scalability and transactional efficiency. barter suggests three basic protocols, offering different levels of trust in the system. Barter's novelty is twofold: First, by distributing signature verification away from barter servers, the overhead of online transaction processing is reduced by orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, this does not sacrifice strong security requirements, namely the ability to aggregate transaction commitments and to resolve disputes. Second, barter integrates scalability considerations into several system components that are likely to suffer service degradation in a world-wide setting. These components are the authentication subsystem, the account management subsystem, and the maintenance of global data (such as transaction identifier lists). In addressing these issues, barter takes into account the inherent asynchronous, unreliable, insecure and failureprone environment assumptions. We contend that by employing service distribution, barter is expected to scale well, meeting the demands of a world-wide setting, over which it is intended to operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Procurement is one of the most important business functions. Especially in highly mechanized mass-production industries, the proportion of income dollars spent on purchasing is relatively high. Distributed object systems provide a key to building interoperable applications that can execute on a range of platforms. We propose a CORBA-based object framework called OFFER, focused on electronic procurement and business-to-business commerce. This paper discusses the design and implementation of the electronic broker in OFFER. Key functionality of the broker is the ability to search in underlying electronic catalogs and the ability to use auction mechanisms to buy or sell goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet is an extremely rich source of online information and services. However, complex client requests, involving and combining several types of services, are difficult to handle without some form of support. This is particularly true in the case of electronic commerce, where complex transactions may involve several independent good providers, bankers, delivery services, etc. Hence the need for "brokering" services, whose offers combine in the best possible way offers coming from existing, specialized services publicly available on the Net, in order to match customers' constraints. The XPect framework for electronic commerce has been developed for that purpose. In this paper, we illustrate it through a case study in the context of distributed print-on-demand. We propose an architecture and implementation of the case study based on CLF, a distributed application development tool relying on a rich object model and its corresponding coordination scripting facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Electronic Commerce (EC), the need of offering brokerage facilities in a distributed environment has arisen. Customers need, in many situations, systems (broker agents) that simplify them the access to the different products and services provided by suppliers. On the other hand, the existence of brokers increases the globality of EC, since customers are even more unaware of the location of their final goods providers. To help on this, several brokerage systems are being developed in different contexts. However, how to organise broker agents in a distributed EC environment is not always being approached in the same way. This paper concentrates on this problem, and considers the different work in the field currently going on. A special focus is made on European research projects. This paper proposes several distributed models for Electronic Commerce, focussing on the case when brokerage facilities are included. In particular, we are proposing different models, i.e. a functional model, and operational model and an architectural model. In order to show the feasibility of the models, how they are applied to a specific implementation is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We first present the findings of 1996 research on on-line commercial activities showing a lack of technological support for such electronic commerce. In fact, there were few signs of trading and negotiation was virtually nonexistent on-line. We also give a case study of an information retrieval system that has the potential to become an on-line brokerage service, then identify and expand the key requirements for electronic commerce. We give an overview of the OSM1 architecture for an electronic market-place and we show how its framework may be used. The paper closes with a bibliography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixes allow the users of electronic data networks to communicate with each other without identifying themselves or uncovering their relationship. Several security applications suggest the usage of mixes. However, such concepts are often not commercially used in practice. One reason may be that providers are only willing to offer anonymous communication if their payment is arranged. We present an anonymity service provided by mixes and describe a payment scheme which allows its anonymous, secure payment. The scheme aims to achieve security for all: the user, the provider and the bank. Detailed protocols for the payment of mixes are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SET protocol, in particular its purchasing phase, is intended for users connected to the Internet during an entire transaction. This requirement cannot be easily met in high communication costs and/or low bandwidth settings, typically found in mobile computing environments. In this paper we propose SET/A, a system that works according to the SET rules for purchasing operations, without forcing the user to be connected during the entire transaction. This is achieved by sending an agent to the merchant's server carrying all the necessary data to order and pay for the products he or she wants to buy. The paper shows that this can be achieved safely and efficiently, providing an alternative way for on-line payments using the SET protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a new approach and system platform for enabling multilateral security in distributed applications. The major goal is to support users configuring their end systems and to negotiate among security requirements of different users with heterogeneous roles. Typical security features such as confidentiality or integrity of transmitted data are presented to the user at different levels of abstraction based on an inheritance hierarchy, according to his background knowledge and experiences. The system platform is implemented in Java, with distributed interaction based on Java RMI (Remote Method Invocation). It enables flexible integration of existing security libraries and facilities. As a validation example, we present a teleshopping scenario that has been realized using the support platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces three basic approaches of digital signature legislation. The overall aim of these approaches is to establish a framework for trust and security in open networks. As nowadays distributed working and distributed businesses widely depend upon open netwoks, such frameworks can be understand as an enabler for the development of electronic commerce. The framework for the use of digital signatures and the framework for the corresponding "trust infrastructure" according to the German Digital Signature Act is described in depth as an example for an accomplished legislative effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suppose there is a seller that has an unlimited number of units of a single product for sale. The seller at each moment of time posts a price for his/her product. Based of the posted price, at each moment of time, a buyer decides whether or not to buy a unit of that product from the seller. The only information about the buyer to the seller is the seller's sales history. Further, we assume that the maximal unit price the buyer is willing to pay does not change over time. The question then is how should the seller price his/her product to maximize profits? To address this question, we use the notion of loss functions. Intuitively, a loss function is a measure, at each moment of time, of the lost opportunity to make a profit. In particular, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm that finds a pricing algorithm (strategy) for the seller that minimizes the average (total) losses over time. Further, we present preliminary results on pricing strategies that minimize the maximum possible loss at every moment of time. We also show that there is no strategy minimizing both the total loss and the maximum loss at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic Commerce involves more than simple online transactions, it also deals with several other fields such as market research, customers care, document exchange and customer modeling. Our paper deals with the customer modeling issue, first introduced in the companion paper [4], where a model is presented of a system that can adapt its response to customers. We present here the necessary extension to the model so that it can be used on a distributed system for EC on the World Wide Web. The extensions presented axe simple, easy to implement, not computationally expensive, and preserve the privacy of all the actors in an EC distributed system, while ensuring the adaptive behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a framework and provides an overview of general methods for optimizing the management of advertisements on web servers. We discuss the major issues which arise in web advertisement management, and describe basic mathematical techniques which can be employed to handle such problems. These include a number of statistical, optimization and scheduling models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]