A novel approach for identification and authentication of users in a pervasive environment

Abstract

Pervasive computing is a relatively new area of interest within computer science. Most of the challenges faced so far have been technical, as much of the research has been on implementation and the integration of various technologies in the pervasive environment [2]. Although such issues are important and should continue to be studied, they do not address vitally important issues of truly pervasive computing: security and privacy. As computing is moving away from our homes and offices and into our streets, current privacy and security issues are obsolete and need to be modified for our new environment: our pervasive computing world. Security is an issue which is not often addressed by the HCI community. However, there is a direct, if inverse, relationship between security and usability. In general the more stringent the security, the more it interferes with the user’s experience causing a decrease in the usability of the system. The most common impact of security on user interaction is the identification and authentication process: entering usernames and passwords. Considering the desktop paradigm, a user may log on to a computer using a username and password, and never be bothered again by the identification and authentication process while they are logged on. However, when we move into the pervasive environment, this identification and authentication process will intrude more upon the user’s interaction as we are exposed to more devices and external networks. The sheer number of usernames and passwords that must be remembered would become a problem [1]. This is considered a major usability problem, with password problems representing 30% of helpdesk calls