anonymous age credentials, sharing of

Rev. Ben samman-ben at CS.YALE.EDU
Thu Feb 15 13:05:21 PST 1996


On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Michael Froomkin wrote:

> Suppose Alice is a CA who issues anonymous age credentials.
> Bob is 15
> Carol is 25
[...]
> What can stop Bob and Carol from subverting a scheme that relies on 
> anonymous age creditials in this manner?

Transfer of credentials is a big problem in terms of computer based 
authentication.

Authentication is traditionally carried out in one of three forms:

*	Authentication by knowledge(passwords)
*	Authentication by posession(key cards)
*	Authentication by being(biometrics)

With the first two, which are overwhelmingly popular and cheap, the 
transfer of credentials is trivial.

Even if they're not anonymous credentials, the fact that I can hand 
someone my driver's licence to swipe through a card reader next to a 
machine is a simple example of transfer of credentials problem.

Ben.
____
Ben Samman..............................................samman at cs.yale.edu
"If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then
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