7.4. Authentication

Authentication refers to the procedure we go through to convince ourselves that somebody is who he or she claims to be. We have two fortresses in a trust relationship: Ed the envoy's fortress and Gwen the guard's fortress. Neither fortress wants to talk to Bart the bad guy. But how does Gwen know that she is talking to Ed, and not to Bart pretending to be Ed? For that matter, how does Ed know that he is really talking to Gwen, and not to Bart pretending to be Gwen? It is just one more task we're going to add to Gwen's ever expanding list of responsibilities: to be sure that when she thinks she is talking to Ed, she really is talking to Ed. Depending on how paranoid Ed is, he can also take on the problem of being sure that ...

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