The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 06, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 15, 1996
Cameron Mashayekhi, Provo, UT (US);
Novell, Inc., Orem, UT (US);
Abstract
A distributed authentication service that automates an authentication exchange between a user and an application program of a distributed network system. The novel distributed authentication service comprises an exchange controller coupled to an authentication database containing a group of encrypted application secrets associated with the user. Each application secret is, in turn, associated with a particular program resident in the system. According to the present invention, the controller cooperates with the database to automate the exchange procedure by (i) receiving an authentication inquiry generated by the particular program in response to the user's request to access that program and (ii) providing that program with the proper application secret retrieved from the database. The group of encrypted application secrets associated with the user is referred to as a 'keychain.' Each keychain is assigned a public/private key pair, with all secrets in the keychain being encrypted with the public key. The user may be associated with one or more keychains, each of which may be further associated with different secrets. Since these secrets correspond to application programs, the association of programs to keychains may be based upon various characteristics, such as the user's rights with respect to the programs. Furthermore, each application program may be accessible by the same or different users so that, e.g., those users having the same access rights for a program may utilize the same keychain containing each user's secrets for the programs.