Multi-Device Digital Signature Confirmation for Message Authenticity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electronic messaging systems lack the ability to verify the authenticity of the sender, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks where malicious actors can impersonate legitimate users, leading to unauthorized access and transfer of sensitive information.
Innovation Solution
A digital signature system that verifies the authenticity of a message by generating a signature using a private key and confirming the request for the signature across multiple devices, ensuring only authorized users can send messages with a digital signature.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If digital signature verification is implemented using third-party services, then message authenticity can be verified, but system complexity and dependency on external services increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a certificate authority (CA) as an intermediary that issues digital certificates to users. These certificates serve as trusted intermediaries that verify sender identity without requiring direct trust between communicating parties. The CA mediates the authentication process by providing verifiable credentials that prove the sender's identity, thus resolving the contradiction between verification reliability and system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary authentication by requiring users to obtain digital certificates from a CA before they can send messages. This preliminary action of certificate issuance establishes trust in advance, allowing subsequent message verification to be straightforward. The complex authentication setup is done beforehand, simplifying the actual message sending and verification processes.
2Device complexity
If digital signatures are generated and verified locally without third-party involvement, then system complexity is reduced, but verification capability may be limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses digital certificates as copyable credentials that can be distributed and verified. The CA issues certificate copies to users, and these certificates can be copied and verified by any party without requiring continuous connection to the CA. This copying mechanism enables local verification while maintaining reliability, as the certificate contains all necessary verification information.
Solution Approach 2:
The verification process is segmented into two independent parts: certificate issuance by the CA and certificate verification by the recipient's device. This segmentation allows the complex cryptographic verification to be performed locally on the recipient's device using pre-distributed certificates, reducing system complexity while maintaining verification capability.
3Reliability
If multiple devices are used for confirmation, then security against unauthorized access is improved, but the time required for message sending increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary binding of devices to user accounts before message sending. Once a device is registered and associated with a user account, subsequent messages from that device are automatically authorized. This preliminary action eliminates the need for repeated multi-device confirmation, reducing message sending time while maintaining security through the initial device-binding process.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and techniques are described herein for validating one or more requests. For example, the systems and techniques can include receiving message data from a first device accessible to a user. The message data can be associated with a message to be sent using the first device. The systems and techniques can also include sending, to a second device accessible to the user, a request for confirmation that the user requested a digital signature for the message, the first device and second device being different devices. The systems and techniques can further include receiving a confirmation from the second device, the confirmation confirming that the user requested the digital signature for the message. The systems and techniques can further include generating the digital signature for the message using the message data and a private key and sending the digital signature to the first device.