Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Multiple computer communication using cryptography – Protection at a particular protocol layer
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-07
2004-10-12
Darrow, Justin T. (Department: 2132)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Multiple computer communication using cryptography
Protection at a particular protocol layer
C713S159000, C713S182000, C713S185000, C705S065000, C235S380000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06804786
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to systems enabling access of users to services and, in particular, to an arrangement that allows a user to create a customisable access token for such services and to the fast retrieval of multiple level information from customized cards. The invention has been developed primarily for secure access to digital services and will be described hereinafter with reference to these and related applications. However, it will be appreciated, particularly in view of the number of alternative examples given, that the invention is not limited to these fields of use.
BACKGROUND ART
In the provision of digital services to users, access is typically controlled by some secret that is shared between the user and the provider of the service. This secret is often known by names such as a “key”, a “password”, a “personal identification number” (PIN) and so forth.
The security level associated with the provision of the service is typically enhanced through the use of lengthy or complicated secrets. Unfortunately, people are typically poor at remembering long or complex secrets and such secrets are also cumbersome to input to some checking system. As a consequence, secrets that are shared amongst a small group of people tend to be short, for example four or six digits in length. Such results in lower levels of security than is desirable. This is particularly the case in the realm of services accessed via computer through the Internet where unscrupulous persons can mount an automated attack upon the provision of the service or the service itself. This is to be contrasted with automatic teller machines where the gateway to the service is controlled by the provider of the service (eg. the bank).
One way to increase the security level without requiring individuals to remember long secrets, is to store the secret in some convenient form, for example in a smartcard device, known per se. In the context of this specification, such smartcard devices relate to those devices which contain a computing capacity within the device and not merely the simple “memory only” smartcard devices commonly used as telephone cards and for other basic applications. An example of a device including a computing capacity that is currently available is the “JavaCard” manufactured by Schlumberger Industries of France.
To protect the smartcard device from unauthorised use by a thief or other unscrupulous person, such devices are generally configured to require a short secret (eg. a PIN) to be entered prior to use being enabled. An example of a similar such device currently in use are credit-card sized organisers that can hold many passwords, all protected by a master password (eg. the PIN) arranged on the organiser. These devices are often used by administrators of computer systems who are required to remember many passwords. However, such an arrangement is quite vulnerable to compromise because if an attacker can obtain the device, an attack can be mounted upon it. The only change from the previous case being that the channel between the user and the service is more secure because longer secrets are used in such an arrangement. The weak link in the security arrangement is the secret implemented by the user to obtain access to the service (eg. the master PIN).
It is known to those skilled in the computing sciences that the need for a user and the service to share a secret can be removed by using public-key cryptography. The user holds the private half of the key-pair and the service (in fact the world in general) may be given the public half of the key-pair. The service authenticates the user by issuing a challenge to the user's input by requesting a known datum to be encoded by the user's key. If the encoded datum can be decoded correctly by the service issuing the user's public key, then provided the user has kept the private key a secret, it can then be said, with a very high level of confidence, that the user is authentic. Such a scheme makes a device having a computing capacity mandatory because humans cannot perform the arithmetic operations required for authentication at an appropriate speed. Advanced smartcards, such as the smartcards discussed above, having a computing capability can provide such capacity.
There still remains the problem of how to adequately protect the private key held in such a smartcard.
It has been proposed to use a scheme where a user is posed a series of questions relating to the user's personal history. For example, “my most memorable moment was in . . . ”, where the user is expected to fill in a geographic location of the “memorable moment”. Another example includes “the day Kennedy died, I was . . . ”. In this example, any attacker to the system has no knowledge as to which Kennedy is meant by the user. In such systems, the assumption is that an attacker would not know the answers to a sufficiently large number of obscurely phrased questions relating to the user's personal history. In contrast, the user would know the answers to such questions and would remember those answers well because they are in some way significant in the user's mind. Such an arrangement may provide some leeway for incorrect answers to be entered thereby permitting access to the service provided a sufficiently large number of correct answers are returned by the user. The security scheme just described has the disadvantage that a computer and an input device, such a keyboard, are required to provide implementation. Such reliance upon relatively large devices inhibits broader use of digital services, especially in electronic commerce, where the user may not wish to trust the computer being used by the service provider, but also does not wish to carry a computer and associated input device.
Complex computer systems used in everyday life today make use of multiple levels of interaction to make computer applications substantially simpler to navigate. Users typically must navigate through multiple levels of interaction to locate information or perform operations that are of interest. Content retrieval applications generally organize content in a tree or hierarchical type structure and allow navigation to more detailed “branches” on the tree. Searching methods and associated software are typically provided to guide the user through various levels of the tree to a desired node thereof. Similarly, there are many computer applications which perform a task, where that task is specified by a number of key presses or menu choices. It is the combination of these key presses or menu choices which specifies the form of task to be performed. Thus a complex task can be completed through a number of simple key presses or menu options. Many navigating techniques and navigating engines are known in the prior art and are available for use in performing this process.
However, these prior art approaches have several drawbacks which can make it difficult to effectively locate the desired materials or operations. One disadvantage is that applications are likely to provide only first level entries which are apparent to the user. Available navigation paths are unknown to the user before navigation commences, can thus become easily confused as to which level he is currently on, and how many levels are left to be traversed before the destination is reached. In addition, the user may also be unaware of which button(s) is/are enabled and which is/are disabled until a button is pressed and a response is received. If the application makes use of a standard keyboard layout and mouse pointer, it is likely that only a small minority of the available keys will be mapped to functions. Thus, some prior knowledge of the mapped keys is needed in order to reduce frustration, unless very clear instructions are given. The resulting user interface is therefore not simple to use and assumes some experience or knowledge from the user.
Apart from the lack of pre-shown searching paths on a fixed user interface, another disadvantage is that user interfaces keep changing. This is especially
Chamley Cathryn Anne
Wang Zhi-Lei
Yap Sue-Ken
Yourlo Zhenya Alexander
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Darrow Justin T.
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
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