Boris Padovan

A Prototype for an Agent-Based Secure Electronic Marketplace Including Reputation-Tracking Mechanisms

Software agents will play a crucial role in the coming digital economy, but their reliability and honesty cannot be guaranteed by technical security mechanisms, such as encryption of messages and digital signing of documents, and entities that can sanction fraudulent behavior in open networks are still in a rudimentary stage. This article describes a reputation mechanism that records previous cooperation behavior of participants in agent-based markets and conveys this information to other software agents, thereby influencing the future behavior of participants. The mechanism has been prototypically implemented in the Avalanche multiagent system. The deployment of this reputation mechanism will help to exclude fraudulent software agents from market participation.

A prototype for an agent-based secure electronic marketplace including reputation tracking mechanisms

The future of electronic commerce will be shaped by open, heterogeneous and complex structures, consisting of networked marketplaces. Software agents will interact and negotiate on behalf of their human (or organizational) principals. Principals will be able to implement fraudulent strategies in their agents, which cannot be countered by technical security alone. In the absence of a single correctional institution, agents will have to rely on social mechanisms for assessing reliability and reputation of other, unknown agents. The multi-agent system AVALANCHE is a prototype for an agent based secure electronic commerce marketplace environment. The reputation tracking mechanism, which is implemented in AVALANCHEs software agents, evaluates transaction behavior and influences partner selection and negotiation strategy in future transactions, while protecting the privacy of the participants. The successful result is an increasing expulsion of fraudulent agents from the market.

Simulating value chain coordination with artificial life agents

The increasing use of information technology within and between companies yields changes in the predominant coordination mechanisms. On one hand it is argued that we witness an overall shift towards market-like coordination of business transactions, whereas others argue that we face more hierarchy-like coordination. In this paper a multi-agent system is described that globally coordinates a multiple step value chain either way by using local optimization rules of self-interested autonomous agents. In further research it will be analyzed how changes in setup parameters (e.g. transaction costs, cooperational behavior) will effect the predominant coordination mechanism among the artificial life agents.

Automatisierte Reputationsverfolgung auf einem agentenbasierten elektronischen Marktplatz

Software-Agenten werden zukunftig im digitalen Wirtschaften eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Ein kooperatives Verhalten der Agenten kann trotz Nutzung technischer Sicherheitsmechanismen wie z.B. Kryptographie oder digitaler Signierung jedoch nicht vorausgesetzt werden. Instanzen die betrugerisches Verhalten in offenen Netzen sanktionieren existieren bisher nur ansatzweise. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Reputationsmechanismus fur agentenbasierte elektronische Markte entwickelt der das fruhere Kooperationsverhalten agentenbasierter Marktteilnehmer erfasst diese an andere Agenten weiterleitet und damit zukunftiges Verhalten beeinflusst. Der Mechanismus wurde prototypisch implementiert und es kann gezeigt werden dass dessen Einsatz betrugerische Agenten von der Marktteilnahme in zunehmendem Mase ausschliest.

Artificial Coordination - Simulating Organizational Change with Artificial Life Agents

Abstract The increasing use of information technology within and between companies yields to changes in the predominant coordination mechanisms. On the one hand it is argued that we witness an overall shift towards market-like coordination of business transactions, whereas others argue that we face more hierarchy-like coordination. In this paper a multi-agent system is described that globally coordinates a multiple step value chain either way by using local optimization rules of self-interested autonomous agents. In further research it will be analyzed how changes in setup parameters (e.g. transaction costs, co-operational behavior) will effect the predominant coordination mechanism among the artificial life agents.

Eine Multi-Agenten-Simulation zur ökonomischen Analyse der dezentralen Koordination von Wertschöpfungsketten

Autonome Software-Agenten werden in Zukunft auf elektronischen Marktplatzen, die in offenen Netzen verteilt liegen, automatisiert und aktiv Handel im Auftrag ihres Anwenders betreiben. Die Komplexitat dieser Aufgabe macht es notwendig, dezentrale Koordinationsmechanismen einzusetzen, die der Struktur dieser Netze angepast sind.