THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY November 12, 2003 authentication
______________________ SPONSORED BY: CA Unicenter infrastructure management software Free White Paper: Explore the Next Generation of Organizational IT The next generation approach to organizational IT demands that your IT is proactively driven by the needs of business. Unicenter software from CA helps your company efficiently meet these demands by enabling your infrastructure to manage itself, allowing IT managers to focus more on the business of business - not the business of maintenance. To learn more about Unicenter and access a Free White Paper on next generation IT go to: http://WhatIs.com/r/0,,21121,00.htm?track=NL-34&ca ________________ TODAY'S WORD: authentication See our complete definition with hyperlinks at http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci211621,00.html?track=NL-34 Authentication is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be. In private and public computer networks (including the Internet), authentication is commonly done through the use of logon passwords. Knowledge of the password is assumed to guarantee that the user is authentic. Each user registers initially (or is registered by someone else), using an assigned or self-declared password. On each subsequent use, the user must know and use the previously declared password. The weakness in this system for transactions that are significant (such as the exchange of money) is that passwords can often be stolen, accidentally revealed, or forgotten. For this reason, Internet business and many other transactions require a more stringent authentication process. The use of digital certificates issued and verified by a Certificate Authority (CA) as part of a public key infrastructure is considered likely to become the standard way to perform authentication on the Internet. Logically, authentication precedes authorization (although they may often seem to be combined). _______________________ RELATED TERMS: logon http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci212499,00.html?track=NL-34 digital certificate http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci211947,00.html?track=NL-34 certificate authority http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci213831,00.html?track=NL-34 public key infrastructure http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci214299,00.html?track=NL-34 authorization http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci211622,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________ SELECTED LINKS: VeriSign is the leading certificate authority (certificate authority), providing over 125,000 Web sites with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) server certificates, mainly for use in e-commerce. http://www.verisign.com/ IBM describes the X.509 certificate. http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com/docs/jdk1.3/guide/security/cert3.html SearchSecurity.com offers a crash course in authentication. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/featuredTopic/0,290042,sid14_gci935532,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________ TODAY'S TECH NEWS: FORMER FCC CHAIRMAN BLASTS AGENCY'S 'SUSPICIOUS' VOIP ACTIONS Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt on Tuesday blasted his former agency and current chairman Michael Powell at the Pulver.com Wireless Internet Summit, claiming that the FCC has already decided to regulate VoIP, stifling future technological innovation. http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid7_gci936461,00.html?track=NL-34 PATCHES FOR CRITICAL IE, WINDOWS FLAWS ISSUED Microsoft sounded the alarm this afternoon, warning users of critical vulnerabilities in Windows and Internet Explorer. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci936407,00.html?track=NL-34 GOLDMINE TO GO ASP ROUTE By the middle of next year, GoldMine CRM software will also be available through a hosted model, company officials said. http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid11_gci936405,00.html?track=NL-34 >> Catch up on all the latest IT news at http://searchtechtarget.techtarget.com?track=NL-34 _____________________ HOROSCOPES FOR GEEKS Thanks to the Harmonic Concordance on the 8th of this month, we're finally free of the effects of retrograde Mars. Find out what the universe has in store for your sign this month! >> Click here http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci919205,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________ SECRET WORD-OF-THE-DAY | What is IT? Consult The Oracle of Bacon: it really is a small world! This is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. >> See if you're right! http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci932596,00.html?track=NL-34 _____________________ LEARN IT IN 10 EASY STEPS | Instant Messaging in the Enterprise Learn why big business is so interested in a little thing called instant messaging. http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid4_gci934583,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________________ RECENT ADDITIONS AND UPDATES [1] TCP/IP offload engine http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci935358,00.html?track=NL-34 [2] graph theory http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci934747,00.html?track=NL-34 [3] IM worm http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid4_gci934707,00.html?track=NL-34 [4] human factors http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci214386,00.html?track=NL-34 [5] ergonomics http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212071,00.html?track=NL-34 ____________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::: WHATIS.COM CONTACTS ::::::::::::::::::: MARGARET ROUSE, Site Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) IVY WIGMORE, Consulting Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) LOWELL THING, Consulting Editor and Founder ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) GABRIELLE DERUSSY, Advertising ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ::::::::::::::::::::: ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER :::::::::::::::::::::: This newsletter is published by TechTarget, the most targeted IT media. http://www.techtarget.com?track=NL-34 Copyright 2003 TechTarget. 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