Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – System access control based on user identification by... – Using record or token
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-26
2004-10-26
Morse, Gregory (Department: 2134)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
System access control based on user identification by...
Using record or token
C713S193000, C705S066000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06810479
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to integrated circuit (IC) cards, such as smart cards, PC cards, and the like, which are capable of being used for multiple different applications. This invention further relates to systems and methods for initializing, configuring, and managing various resources maintained on the IC cards. This invention also relates to the secure management and transportation of cryptographic-related resources, such as keys and certificates, from one location to another.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Computers are playing an ever increasing role in day-to-day personal management. Individual users keep appointment schedules, track bank and credit card accounts, manage investment portfolios, reserve travel accommodations, transact business, order products, and submit payment all electronically from their own computers. This revolution is being spawned by the combined phenomenon of rapid and wide deployment of personal computers in both business and home environments, explosive growth in interconnecting these personal computers to networks and online services, and dramatic increase in the deployment of retail terminals or kiosks based on PC technology.
As part of this trend, businesses have identified significant opportunities for electronic commerce, not only with other businesses, but also through direct access to the consumer. Merchants are selling wares in an electronic marketplace which enable users to shop and purchase goods using their computer. For instance, many merchants are developing web sites that allow users to browse products over the Internet. Payment and settlement following any purchase are likewise handled electronically among the merchants, their banks, any credit companies, and the purchasers' banks.
One consequence of this revolution is a growing demand for high data security and for high assurance in user identification and authentication. In an electronic marketplace, there is no face-to-face transaction in which security is ensured by the presence of both parties and authentication of the consumer involves personal recognition or quick verification of a corroborating piece of identification (i.e., a credit card or a driver's license). Rather, in an electronic arena, the consumer might live in one state or country, while the merchant resides in another, and the two parties never meet in person.
For an electronic marketplace to flourish, consumers and merchants must believe that information being exchanged between them is secure. They must also trust that the other party is legitimate. Moreover, each party must also have some assurance that the information received from the other party did in fact originate at the other party (and not an impostor) and that the information has not been subsequently altered or tampered with by an intruder. Accordingly, security, identification, authentication, and information validity are important to the full development and acceptance of an electronic marketplace. Furthermore, these capabilities must be readily portable by the end user in a manner which facilitates access to the electronic marketplace from a variety of locations.
Even outside of the commerce environment, the same themes of security, identification, authentication, and validity are becoming more important as reliance on computer networks increases. In modern network environments, identification and authentication are commonly used in access protocols aimed at preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to resources and services provided by the network. Typically, a user identifies himself or herself to a computer using a login dialog in which the user enters a descriptive and secret code name. The authentication process running on the computer validates the user based upon this confidential code name. Once validated, the user is free to roam the computer and network for resources and services. Unfortunately, the password authentication process often falls short of providing adequate security or user authentication. The password protocol, by itself, is well known to be weak and conducive to successful illegitimate attacks.
The problems inherent in password approaches has given rise to a variety of products which perform user authentication. Such products typically employ cryptographic technology in combination with hardware token devices. These token devices are typically pre-configured by the manufacturer and delivered to the user and replace the login password with a more robust and difficult to attack challenge-response protocol. While this technology is adequate for access control on an enterprise network (i.e., a local network for a business or other entity), it is not particularly scalable to public networks used by a large user population. This is the result of reliance on a centralized access control server which has knowledge of all the tokens issued to valid users.
Another problem which existing hardware tokens has been generation and management of key values.“Keys” are a numerical value, often expressed digitally as a number of bits, which are used in cryptographic algorithms that encrypt and decrypt messages. The keys are uniquely associated with a particular identity, such as a user or a computer. Configuring millions of devices, each with its own unique keys, would be a huge processing task for the manufacturer, resulting in a significant increase in the cost of the hardware device. From a security standpoint, another problem is that the manufacturer becomes a centralized point of attack in which bandits can covertly attempt to steal private key information. Another problem concerns replacement of keys. Once a key has exhausted it useful life, the manufacturer must either issue new devices with new keys or reconfigure old devices to change the keys. Once again, this is an extremely difficult, expensive, and inefficient task in a large scale system.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop an open identification and authentication architecture that does not rely on proprietary or customized hardware devices.
In addition to identification and authentication, the electronic arena also requires secure data transmission over an insecure public network (e.g., the Internet). Cryptography has evolved in the electronic setting as a means to securely transfer information over a communication system that is presumed to be insecure. Cryptography provides the necessary tools to digitally secure sensitive and valuable electronic messages in a manner that insures privacy between the sender and recipient of the communique, even though the message is subject to interception on the insecure communication system.
Through use of both public key (or asymmetric key) cryptography combined with secret key (or symmetric key) cryptography it is possible to address the above requirements. To initiate a secure electronic transaction between two individuals, one can use an authentication protocol based on public key cryptography. This protocol will result in the exchange of public key certificates and data encrypted with a private authentication key between the two users. The certificates contain a party's identification, the party's public keys (typically both a authentication or signature key and a key exchange key will be used), and is digitally signed by a trusted certifying authority. Upon receipt of the certificate, each party validates the certifying authority's signature (using their publicly available key). They can then use the public key in the certificate to validate the authentication data provided by the other party, which was encrypted with their private key. Once the validation is complete, they have high assurance they are in communication with the individual named in the certificate.
To securely exchange messages they can use a combination of both public and secret key cryptography. To send a secure message, the sender will generate a secret key and use this to encrypt the message using a secret key algorithm. Encryption transforms the message from plaintext into some meaningless ciphertext that is not u
Barlow Doug
Dillaway Blair
Fox Barbara
Lipscomb Terry
Spies Terrence
Lee & Hayes PLLC
Microsoft Corporation
Morse Gregory
Simitoski Michael J.
LandOfFree
System and method for configuring and managing resources on... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System and method for configuring and managing resources on..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System and method for configuring and managing resources on... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3299120