Ubiquitous Internet access control: the PAPI system

PAPI is a system for providing access control to restricted information resources across the Internet. The authentication mechanisms are designed to be as flexible as possible, allowing each organization to use its own authentication schema, keeping user privacy, and offering information providers data enough for statistics. Access control mechanisms are transparent to the user and compatible with the most commonly employed Web browsers and any operating system. Since PAPI uses standard HTTP procedures, PAPI authentication and access control does not require any specific hardware or software, thus providing users with ubiquitous access to any resource they have right to.