II.
Main part. A solving problems in authentication system and making
software development
2.1.
The existing problems in authentication and protocols
Key authentication is
used to solve the problem of authenticating the keys of
the person (say "person B") to whom some other person ("person A") is talking to
or trying to talk to.
In other words, it is the process of assuring that the key of
"person A" held by "person B" does in fact belong to "person A" and vice versa.
This is usually done after the keys have been
shared among the two sides
over some secure channel, although some of the algorithms
share the keys at the
time of authentication also.
The simplest solution for this problem is for the two users concerned to meet
face-to-face and exchange keys. However, for systems in which there are a large
number of users or in which the users do not personally know each other (e.g.,
Internet shopping) this is not practical. There are
various algorithm for both
symmetric keys and asymmetric public key cryptography to solve this problem.
Authentication using Shared Keys
For key authentication using the traditional symmetric key cryptography,
this is the problem of assuring that there is no man-in-the-middle
attacker who is
trying to read or spoof the communication. There are various algorithms used
nowadays to prevent such attacks. The most common
among the algorithms are
Duffy-Hellman
key
exchange,
authentication
using Key
distribution
center, Kerberos and Needham Schroeder protocol. Other methods that can be used
include agreement protocols etc.
Authentication using Public Key Cryptography
Crypto systems using asymmetric key algorithms
do not evade the problem
too. That a public key can be known by all without compromising the security of
an encryption algorithm (for some such algorithms, though not for all) is certainly
useful, but does not prevent some kinds of attacks. For example, a spoofing attack
in which public key
A
is claimed publicly to be that of user Alice, but is in fact a
private key belonging to man-in-the-middle attacker Mallet, is easily possible. No
public key is inherently bound to any particular user,
and any user relying on a
defective binding (including Alice herself when she sends herself protected
messages) will have trouble.
The most common solution to this problem
is the use of public key
certificates and certificate authorities (CAs) for them in a public-key
infrastructure (PKI) system. The certificate authority (CA) acts as a 'trusted third
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