Abstract
In a broad sense, a software agent is a computer program that acts autonomously on behalf of a person or organization. Software-agent technology seems able to provide attractive solutions in the field of electronic commerce. An agent-based architecture for electronic commerce allows the creation of a virtual marketplace in which a number of autonomous or semi-autonomous agents trade goods and services. The introduction of software agents acting on behalf of end-consumers could reduce the effort required from users when conducting electronic commerce transactions, by automating a variety of activities. The personalized, continuously running autonomous nature of agents makes them well suited for mediating consumer behavior with respect to information filtering and retrieval, personalized evaluations, complex coordination, and time-based interactions. Agents are able to examine a large number of products before making a decision to buy or sell. This not only eliminates the need to manually collect information about products but also allows the negotiation of an optimal deal with the various sellers of a good.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
A. Chavez, P. Maes (1996) Kasbah: an agent marketplace for buying and selling goods. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-agent Technology.
J. G. Lee, J. Y. Kang, E. S. Lee (1997) ICOMA: an open infrastructure for agent-based intelligent electronic commerce on the Internet. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
P. Maes, R. H. Guttman, A. G. Moukas (1999) Agents that buy and sell: transforming commerce as we know it. Comm ACM (March Issue).
A. Moukas, R. Guttman, P. Maes (1998) Agent-mediated electronic commerce: an MIT media laboratory perspective. In: Proceedings of ICEC Conference, 1998.
M. Tsvetovatyy, M. Gini (1996) Toward a virtual marketplace: architectures and strategies. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agent and Multi-agent Technology (PAAM’96), Blackpool, 1996.
M. Tsvetovatyy, M. Gini, B. Mobasher, Z. Wieckowski (1997) MAGMA: an agent-based virtual market for electronic commerce. J Appl Artificial Intelligence.
A. Young, M. Yung (1997) Encryption tools for mobile agents: sliding encryption. In E. Biham (ed.) Fast software encryption — FSE’97, LNCS 1267. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
F. Hohl (1997) An approach to solve the problem of a malicious host. Report No. 1997, Universität Stuttgart, Fakultät Informatik.
T. Sander, C. Tschudin (1997) Towards mobile cryptography. Technical Report, International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley.
T. Sander, C. Tschudin (1997) Protecting mobile agents against malicious hosts. In: Mobile agent security, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
M. Bellare, P. Rogaway (1994) Optimal asymmetric encryption. In: Eurocrypt 94, LNCS 950. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
R. Rivest, A. Shamir, L. Adleman (1978) A method for obtaining digital signatures and public key cryptosystems. Commun ACM 21(2): 120126.
A. Das, G. Yao (2001) A secure payment protocol using mobile agents in an untrusted host environment. In: W. Kou, et al. (eds.) Electronic commerce technologies — ISEC 2001, LNCS 2040. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
G. Yao (2001) Security mechanisms for mobile agent-based e-commerce systems. Master’s Thesis, Nanyang Technological University.
A. Shamir (1979) How to share a secret. Commun ACM 22:612-613.
D. Chaum (1989) Online cash checks. In: Proceedings of Advances in Cryptography—Eurocrypt’89, LNCS 434. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
S. A. Brands (1993) An efficient off-line electronic cash system based on the representation problem. Technical Report CSR9323, Computer Science Department, CWI, US.
S. Brands (1994) Untraceable off-line cash in wallet with observers. In: Advances in Cryptology—CRYPTO’93. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
J. C. Benaloh (1997) Secret sharing homomorphisms: keeping shares of a secret secret. In: A. Odlyzko (ed.), Advances in Cryptology, Proc. of Crypto’86, Santa Barbara, CA, US, Aug. 1987.
Y. Desmedt (1997) Some recent research aspects of threshold cryptography. In: E. Okamoto, et al. (eds.), Information security, LNCS 1396. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York.
N. Jacobson (1985) Basic algebra, I. W.H. Freeman, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Das, A. (2003). Payment Agents. In: Payment Technologies for E-Commerce. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05322-5_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05322-5_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-07887-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-05322-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive