Securing AJAX-enriched mobile environment for exchanging SVG-based learning materials

Abstract

AJAX applications provide new learning possibilities through its support to dynamic interaction, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. Developers should be weary of new insecurities introduced by these capabilities [1]. The mobile industry in particular has not made better use of AJAX because of the complexities involved dealing with open source XMLized documents such as SVGs. Such documents are becoming more and more popular for the mobile paradigm because of their ubiquity nature. However, security is a major obstacle for their wide usage since SVGs are XML in the end; a human readable text. This article describes the development of a prototype that enables Mobile AJAX to be used for the secure delivery of SVG-based learning documents between mobile learners. The prototype demonstrates how AJAX can be geared to a mobile environment by using the W3C XML Security standard. Our implementation of the XML security standard is achieved by using the lightweight Bouncy Castle API for the signing and authentication of SVG Tiny 1.2 documents on J2ME CLDC mobile learning environment.