Sobriquet : a personal naming and identity management system
Citation:
Robert McAdoo, 'Sobriquet : a personal naming and identity management system', [thesis], Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Computer Science & Statistics, 2012, pp 198Download Item:
Abstract:
The Internet in its current form lacks an adequate identity infrastructure. Every rel-
evant application must provide its own solution to the problem of authenticating and
naming people. Many of these applications share common goals and duplicate this
functionality. Compounding the problem is that for every application a person uses
they acquire a new identifier and set of authentication credentials.
In some cases people come to depend on these names to be reachable online. When
these identifiers change or become unavailable people lose contact with one another.
The reliance on these identifiers also encourages provider lock-in. Regulators of the
telephone system realised some time ago that mobility of identifiers is important as a
means of encouraging competition between providers. Yet on the Internet no system
exists to provide this functionality.
The lack of a means to authenticate people on the Internet means that people often
communicate with one another insecurely; without the ability to know for sure who
they are communicating with and having no means to ensure the confidentiality of their
communications. Public Key Infrastructures were once thought to be the solution to
this problem, but have so far failed to live up to this promise. They are costly to
maintain and are not suitable for all applications where authentication is required.
The area of identity management has sought to rectify the authentication problem in
recent years, but generally ignores the identifier mobility issue.
In our solution, Sobriquet, we propose a global naming system for people that
allows for identifier mobility, and an identity management system that aims to provide
a means of authenticating people. Our solution recognises that there is in all likelihood no general solution to the problem of authenticating people. We propose a system
of authentication we call "history based authentication" that authenticates a person
as being the same individual as was present in a previous communications session.
Authentication happens with respect to an identifier, and the history of interactions
an entity has with the person that identifier represents influences the notions of identity
that this entity ascribes to that identifier.
We argue that this is an adequate level of authentication for many types of online
interactions. Our solution also addresses the issue of bootstrapping trust between
people who have never met. We do this by reducing the economic incentives for people
to engage in undesirable behaviour.
Author: McAdoo, Robert
Advisor:
O'Mahony, DonalQualification name:
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)Publisher:
Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Computer Science & StatisticsNote:
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