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Did Kim Dotcom invent 2-factor authentication? Er, not exactly... | 244 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: I Own Security Patent, Work With Me
Authored by: Gringo_ on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 10:51 AM EDT

I support him in this endeavor. I don't know if this threat is going to impress the companies he is threatening, but they should pitch in and help. They are all fighting a common enemy - the MAFIAA and government corruption.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

here's the patent - US6078908 A
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 12:47 PM EDT
Method for authorizing in data transmission systems
https://www.google.com/patents/US6078908

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Dotcom's European two-factor authentication patent was revoked in 2011
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 01:30 PM EDT
Dotcom does have a US patent (using his original name of Kim Schmitz) on two-factor authentication, filed in 1998 and granted in 2000. He also used to have an equivalent patent in Europe. But Dotcom's European patent was revoked in 2011 largely because AT&T had a patent on the same technology with a priority date from 1995. (Thanks to Emily Weal of patent law firm Keltie for pointing out Dotcom's European patent travails in the IP Copy blog.)
Jon Brodkin, ars technica

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

If the description in the newspicks on new twitter login is correct then
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 23 2013 @ 07:34 PM EDT
how could there be a patent on something so obvious ?

It is a simple extension of calling someone back when you do not trust that
(s)he really is as claimed.

Allthough dotcom may well be wrongly treated, these sort of threats won't gain
him my sympathy.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: I Own Security Patent, Work With Me
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 24 2013 @ 09:59 AM EDT
Back when I ran a BBS, this was the procedure to get on, and stay
on my BBS:
* User logs in;
* User is promptly disconnected;
* My BBS called the user;
* User logs in again;
* User is promptly disconnected;
* User logs in;
* User stays connected;

The differences between that and two-step authentication are:
* User has to log in three times;
* The connection/reconnection was using the same pair of wires;

The documentation had an example of configuring the BBS to
send a message to a pager. This was mainly used to tell the
Sysop that somebody was trying to hack the system. However, it
also could send pages when people logged in, or logged out.

###

There was another BBS that upon logging in, callers were
automatically disconnected, and had to wait for a voice call, to
give them the name and password to login under.

All of which is a round about way of saying that in the late-
eighties, and early nineties, people were looking at ways of
securing connections, that went beyond a simple login with
password.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Did Kim Dotcom invent 2-factor authentication? Er, not exactly...
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 24 2013 @ 02:25 PM EDT
But did Dotcom really invent 2FA for remote authentication? In short, it appears he did not.

In 1996, the then-Kim Schmitz filed for a patent entitled "Method for authorizing in data transmission systems". The patent has a priority date of 29 April 1997, and it does indeed describe a two-factor authentication system. The user logs into a service, triggers a secondary authentication request, and this is fulfilled by SMS.

But Ericsson filed a patent titled "User authentication method and apparatus" with a priority date of 24 June 1994 that also covered 2FA using a pager or phone. A later patent filed by Nokia ["Method for obtaining at least one item of user authentication data"] with a priority date of 23 February 1996 resembles even more closely the 2FA approach used on the web today.

Ken Tindell, The Register

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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