Protection of mobile agent data collection by using ring signature

Pricing query is a typical application of mobile agent system, but security issues cannot be overlooked when employing this technique. Among all security consideration, Forward Privacy (FP) and Publicly Verifiable Forward Integrity (PVFI) are the most important issues. However, the above two requirements contradict each other when realized by using traditional cryptographic technique, and cannot be provided simultaneously. In this paper, a pricing query protocol with the assistance of a recent signature scheme, ring signature, is proposed which can provide both the features of FP and PVFI. In addition, an extension to shop-configurable security property is also introduced.