Summary: 1
Authentication and Delegation
with Smart­cards
M. Abadi \Lambda M. Burrows \Lambda C. Kaufman y B. Lampson \Lambda
Abstract
The authentication of users in distributed systems poses special problems
because users lack the ability to encrypt and decrypt. The same problems arise
when users wish to delegate some of their authority to nodes, after mutual
authentication.
In most systems today, the user is forced to trust the node he wants to
use. In a more satisfactory design, the user carries a smart­card with sufficient
computing power to assist him; the card provides encryption and decryption
capabilities for authentication and delegation.
Authentication is relatively straightforward with a powerful enough smart­
card. However, for practical reasons, protocols that place few demands on smart­
cards should be considered. These protocols are subtle, as they rely on fairly
complex trust relations between the principals in the system (users, hosts, ser­
vices). In this paper, we discuss a range of public­key smart­card protocols, and
analyze their assumptions and the guarantees they offer.
1 Introduction

Source: Abadi, Martín - Department of Computer Science, University of California at Santa Cruz

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences