On the construction of a powerful distributed authentication server without additional key management

Abstract

The extensive use of networks and distributed systems has increased the need for authentication and digital signatures. In performing authentication on a massive scale, authentication servers that use multiple workstations or PCs are more economical than servers that use one minicomputer or mainframe. However, the establishment of authentication servers with multiple platforms can cause some security problems and increase the cost of key management because all platforms within the server must have the private key of the authentication server. We propose a model for a distributed authentication server, in which one platform keeps the secret information, while the other platforms just do calculations (therefore, no additional key management). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.