| Mobile Agents (MA) are mentioned frequently in the literature to deal with information overload and disconnected computing. Their results, however, are not applicable in the existing E-commerce infrastructure mainly because currently no Web sites are agent-enabled. Two main reasons why Webmasters are unwilling to let agents run on their sites: (1) lack of business incentives and (2) security issues. We have designed the Havana agent platform to address these issues; it enables its participants to form beneficial business partnerships. In this thesis, we discuss the reasoning behind, design and implementation of the Havana platform. Some of the interesting features in Havana include: (1) ability to be seamlessly integrated into existing E-commerce sites; (2) ability to enable business of different types to form beneficial partnerships; (3) support of location-based services and advertisements; (4) solving MA security issues in a evolutionary approach; and (5) being accessible from both wired and wireless devices. |
