[esfandia]

Yeah, mobile agents were a hot topic back then (mid 90s), and Telescript was one of the early programming languages that enabled this idea of agents roaming around doing stuff on the web. Java coming along around the same time with dynamic loading of code (used in applets for example) gave the idea another boost. Ultimately, I don't think the security issues (agent could attack the host, host could attack the agent, agents could attack each other, etc.) were worth the trouble and the research seemed to fizzle.

I always wondered if message passing between static agents wasn't a functionally equivalent yet safer and simpler alternative to mobile agents.