Implementation and Evaluation of a Decentralized Authentication System based on Social Groups
Details
| Supervisor: | Niklas Neumann |
| Duration: | 3 to 6 months |
| Type: | Bachelor/Master Thesis or Student Project |
| Status: | open |
Description
Common authentication systems usually rely on some sort of central entity (e.g. a server) to make the decision for each authentication process. The goal of this project is to implement and evaluate an authentication system that does not rely on any kind of centralized authority. Instead the system leverages the membership of a person to certain social groups to make decentralized decisions. To provide a proof of concept the student will chose one protocol (e.g. HTTP) for which he/she will implement and evaluate such a system.
In case of HTTP, the project can include a small Firefox addon on the client side and an Apache authentication module on the server side. Alternatively the system can be implemented with a more generic approach using virtual network interfaces. Other implementation alternatives are also possible depending on the student's skill set.