AuthenLink: A User-Centred Authentication System for a Secure Mobile Commerce

Abstract

We envision an environment where humans communicate directly with computers without additional authentication inputs like passwords, passphrases, PINs (Personal Identification Numbers), biometrics, or other existent authentication systems; and where humans network (intercommunicate) continually with wireless (mobile) devices. In this paper, we propose a new mobile authentication system, not yet implemented, called “AuthenLink”, coupled with a new approach to distinguishing characteristics to authenticate people (authentication factor): something you CONVEY. The utmost purpose of this paper is to provide an ease, user-centred and acceptable security authentication system against fraud, counterfeit, and theft for the mobile commerce (m-Commerce) domain, more specifically for mobile devices. Our authentication system achieves its goal through a microprocessor chip (ChipTag) computer implanted under human skin. This ChipTag is able to authenticate user’s access to systems, connect them wirelessly, through the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, and enable mobile devices perform mobile transactions, access files, or shop online. This experiment may have large-scale implications for employers and for society in general, as humans define how closely they want to be connected with mobile devices.