Vis-a-Vis Verification: Social Network Identity Management Through Real World Interactions

Online services, particularly those aimed at a specific user base such as a company’s employees, face the problem of identity management. Especially when the service constitutes some kind of social network, i.e., the validity of the users’ identities matters, secure and reliable means for identity verification and authentication are required. In this paper, we propose a novel identity management concept based on a) verification through physical presence and b) authentication through ownership. Our approach being a hybrid solution between a centralized authority and decentralized trust management is settled on a sweet spot between security and convenience for the users. Keywords—identity management systems; authentication; social network services; mobile computing