Systems and methods for time variable financial authentication

Abstract

The systems and methods of the invention provide a technique for authenticating a finance related transaction. The method may include providing a token which contains a token counter, the token counter periodically advancing to generate a changing token value, the token counter being synchronized to a base counter that generates an authenticating value; transforming the token value into a token output sequence using logic; and outputting at least part of the token output sequence to an authenticating authority, the authenticating authority having access to the authenticating value. Further, the method includes the authenticating authority verifying the validity of the transaction based on the token output sequence and the authenticating value, from which the authenticating authority obtains a verification sequence using the logic, the verifying the validity including the authenticating authority comparing the token output sequence to the verification sequence to determine if there is a match between the token output sequence and the verification sequence.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part application (CIP) of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 105,471 filed Mar. 25, 2002, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to systems and methods to perform authentication of a transaction between a requesting entity, in particular a customer, and an authenticating authority.[0003]Since the ancient invention of money, problems of counterfeiting have existed. These problems have led to ever more sophisticated measures to make the injection of false tokens, representing value, from successfully being used in a transaction. When in much more recent times credit cards were introduced, such measures were incorporated. For example, in earlier times, only a check digit formed by a secret algorithm was used to validate card numbers, the number space being very sparsely occupied so that the chance of finding a valid card number was relatively low. Then thieves learned...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, with the practice of merchants storing card numbers, including some of the codes, insecurely on the Internet, there have been enough thefts of these numbers so that fraud is becoming an increasingly difficult problem.

Such fraud often occurs in cases where the cards are not physically present.

That is, credit cards contain fraud avoidance devices like holograms which make counterfeiting of physical cards more difficult than counterfeiting numbers off the cards.

Smart cards using public key encryption have been introduced, but these have met with little acceptance, due to their need for gadgetry to read them, which is not widely available.

However, known techniques fail to provide an approach to effectively use the advance of time as an effective authentication mechanism.

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