Identifying persons seeking access to computers and networks
First Claim
1. A method for verifying the identity of a person seeking to gain access to a local computer, to any computer communicative therewith or to any facility accessible through any of these computers, the method comprising:
- (i) Providing a cellular telephone, to be termed cell-phone, associated with a cellular network and registered to the person or legitimately in the person'"'"'s possession, the cell-phone having at least one reference number stored therein;
(ii) Providing a direct communication link between said cell-phone and the local computer, the link possibly including an adapter;
(iii) Storing in any of the computers copies of one or more reference numbers stored in said cell-phone;
(iv) Reading any of the reference numbers stored in said cell-phone, comparing it with the corresponding one of said stored numbers and accordingly verifying the identity of the person.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Method and apparatus for verifying the identity of a person seeking access to a computer, whether directly or thorough a digital network, including the Internet or to some data within the computer or a facility provided by it. The basic principle of the invention is to carry out such identification automatically by means of the person'"'"'s cellular telephone, connected through a suitable adapter, to the computer with which he physically interacts. Also disclosed are means for increasing the security of the identification and the manner of using the method in a variety of applications, including approval of credit-account transactions.
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Citations
94 Claims
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1. A method for verifying the identity of a person seeking to gain access to a local computer, to any computer communicative therewith or to any facility accessible through any of these computers, the method comprising:
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(i) Providing a cellular telephone, to be termed cell-phone, associated with a cellular network and registered to the person or legitimately in the person'"'"'s possession, the cell-phone having at least one reference number stored therein;
(ii) Providing a direct communication link between said cell-phone and the local computer, the link possibly including an adapter;
(iii) Storing in any of the computers copies of one or more reference numbers stored in said cell-phone;
(iv) Reading any of the reference numbers stored in said cell-phone, comparing it with the corresponding one of said stored numbers and accordingly verifying the identity of the person. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 85, 86, 92, 93, 94)
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49. The method of any of claims 4348, wherein the target computer is associated with a corporate entity, the method further comprising:
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(xxiv) authenticating the identity of the corporate entity, associated with the target computer, with respect to the response computer;
(xxv) sending to the local computer a corroboration of the identity of the corporate entity. - View Dependent Claims (50)
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52. A method for verifying the identity of a person seeking to gain access through a local computer to any remote computer communicative therewith through a network, or to any facility accessible through the remote computer, the method comprising:
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(viii) Providing a cellular telephone, to be termed cell-phone, associated with a dial-up cellular network and registered to the person or legitimately in the person'"'"'s possession, the cell-phone having at least one reference number stored therein;
(ix) Providing a direct communication link between said cell-phone and the local computer;
(x) providing at any remote computer one or more dial-up telephone connections, said remote computer being termed a response computer, the response computer being communicative with the local computer through the network, (xi) Storing in the response computer copies of one or more reference numbers stored in said cell-phone;
(xii) causing the local computer to command said cell-phone, through said link, to initiate a call to any of said telephone connections and to thereby cause at least one reference number stored in the cell-phone to be read out and transmitted;
(xiii) the response computer receiving the call initiated in step (v) and extracting therefrom any transmitted reference numbers; and
(xiv) comparing any reference number extracted in step (vi) with the corresponding one of said stored numbers and accordingly verifying the identity of the person.
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53. An access controlled computer—
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directly linkable to a cellular telephone that has at least one reference number stored therein, the link possibly including an adapter;
having stored therein copies of one or more of said reference numbers; and
configured to automatically obtain from a cell-phone linked thereto any reference numbers stored therein, to compare it with said stored copies and accordingly to verify the identity of a person seeking to gain access to the computer or to any computer communicative therewith or to any facility accessible through any of these computers. - View Dependent Claims (54, 55, 56, 57)
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58. A local computer for controllably accessing any remote computer communicative therewith through a network, or any facility accessible through the remote computer, the local computer being—
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directly linkable to a cellular telephone that has at least one reference number stored therein, the link possibly including an adapter, and configured to obtain a dialing number from a remote computer and to automatically send a signal to any linked cell-phone, such that will initiate a call to said dialing number, thereby causing at least one reference number stored in the cell-phone to be read and transmitted over the cellular system with which it is in communication. - View Dependent Claims (59)
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60. An access controlling computer, connectable to a digital network and having one or more telephone connections to a dial-up telephone network, each telephone connection being associated with a dialing number, the computer being configured—
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to communicate with any other computer, termed “
requesting computer”
, on the digital network about gaining access by a requesting person through the requesting computer to any computer on the network or to any facility provided thereby;
to store copies of cellular reference numbers and other data pertaining to persons having permission to access any computer on the network or to access or use any facility provided thereby; and
to receive a call over any of the telephone connections, to check whether the call originated from a cellular telephone, to extract therefrom any reference number transmitted from the cellular telephone, to compare any such extracted number with said stored copies and to accordingly verify the identity of said requesting person. - View Dependent Claims (61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74)
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- 75. An adapter, operative to transmit data between a computer and a cell-phone, comprising at least one security means.
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81. A controller, connectable to a computer, termed response computer, that is, in turn, connectable to a computer network, there being linked to any other computer connected to the network at least one cellular telephone, communicative with a cellular network and having one or more reference numbers stored therein which are readable during a call dialed therefrom, said response computer having one or more telephone connections to a dial-up telephone network, each telephone connection being associated with a dialing number, the controller being operative—
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to receive a call over any one of the telephone connections, to check whether the call originated from a cellular telephone and to extract therefrom any reference number transmitted from the cellular telephone, and to convey any extracted reference number to said response computer. - View Dependent Claims (82, 83)
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84. An access controlled digital system, comprising a plurality of computers,
inter-connected by a network, and one or more telephone lines, connected to a dial-up telephone network, each line being associated with a dialing number; -
at least one of the computers being a requesting computer, operated by a requesting person, and at least one of the computers being a responding computer;
each responding computer being connectable to one or more of said telephone lines and being operative— to store cellular reference numbers and other data pertaining to persons having permission to access said responding computer or to access or use any facility provided therein, to select a dialing number corresponding to one of said lines, to send it to any requesting computer with which it communicates, and to receive a call over the telephone connection associated with said selected dialing number, to check whether the call originated from a cellular telephone, to extract therefrom any reference number transmitted from the cellular telephone, to compare any such extracted number with said stored cellular reference numbers and to accordingly verify the identity of said requesting person; and
each requesting computer being connectable to a cellular telephone, either directly or through an adapter, and configured— to obtain a dialing number from a responding computer with which it communicates and to automatically send a signal to any linked cell-phone, such that will cause the cell-phone to dial said dialing number, thereby causing at least one reference number stored in the cell-phone to be read and transmitted over the cellular system with which it is in communication.
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87. A method for approving a credit account payment by a person for a transaction at a place of business, the approval being by a remote approval agency that is associated with a computer, the method comprising:
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(xv) Providing a cell-phone, associated with a cellular network and registered to the person or legitimately in the person'"'"'s possession, the cell-phone having at least one reference number stored therein;
(xvi) Storing in the computer, in association with other data related to the person, one or more identification numbers corresponding to reference numbers stored in said cellular telephone;
(xvii) providing one or more telephone connections between the computer and a dial-up telephone network each of said telephone connections being associated with a dialing number;
(xviii) dialing one of said dialing numbers of step (xxviii) by said cell-phone, this operation initiating a call and causing at least one reference number stored in the cell-phone to be read and transmitted over the cellular system;
(xix) the computer receiving the call initiated in step (xxix) and extracting therefrom any transmitted reference number;
(xx) retrieving from the computer'"'"'s storage any one of said identification numbers that corresponds to the number extracted in step (xxx), together with any of said associated data, and using said retrieved data in the process of approval. - View Dependent Claims (88, 89, 90, 91)
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Specification