Search

Modern Identity Management systems improve their users' data security and authentication experience considerably. Conversely, given their centralized nature, these systems are often under attack, be it external or internal, because of the important and very likely reserved information they host on their users' behalf. A way to solve this pressing issue is to move the data back in its owner's hands while maintaining all the nice usability improvements of such a system. Using what can be called "User Centric Identity Management" allows just that: every user holds her own data on a device that stores it securely and acts as an arbiter between this information and the services that request it, granting its owner a much more fine tuned control over her information. In this paper we propose a secure schema based on a Personal Authentication Device (PAD), analyze its characteristics and, to show it feasibility, describe an implementation for the Android platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]