IMS Call Authentication via Enterprise Identity Mediation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) systems, the trustworthiness of information exchanged during calls between users inside and outside an enterprise is low, particularly when a calling user's information is sent to a called user, leading to potential privacy issues and slow time to market.
Innovation Solution
Establish a trustworthy security association between the operator network, enterprise, and calling user by using network and enterprise authentication servers to authenticate and verify user identities, ensuring that information sent to the called user is trustworthy and reducing the need for the calling user to open an account in the operator network.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the calling user sends information directly to the called user without authentication, then the call setup is simple and fast, but the trustworthiness of the information is low
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an authentication server as an intermediary between the calling user and the called user. The authentication server receives authentication requests, verifies user identities, and returns authentication results. This mediator ensures information trustworthiness without requiring direct complex authentication between users, resolving the contradiction between reliability and system complexity.
2Reliability
If the calling user opens an account in the operator network, then the information trustworthiness is improved, but the time to market increases and privacy information is exposed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary authentication where the authentication server pre-verifies user identities and establishes authentication credentials before actual calls. Users authenticate once in advance, and the authentication results are cached for subsequent calls. This eliminates the need for repeated account opening procedures, reducing time to market while maintaining information trustworthiness.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication server acts as an intermediary that handles identity verification centrally, preventing direct exposure of user privacy information to the operator network. The server mediates between users and the network, ensuring trustworthiness without requiring users to open accounts in the operator network itself.
3Reliability
If the calling user opens an account in the operator network, then the information trustworthiness is improved, but the privacy information of the calling user is exposed
Solution Approach 1:
The authentication server serves as a privacy-protecting intermediary that handles sensitive authentication data. Instead of users opening accounts directly in the operator network (which would expose privacy information), the authentication server mediates the authentication process, verifying identities without requiring users to expose personal information to the operator network. This maintains information trustworthiness while protecting user privacy.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes: a network authentication server receiving a call request message from a calling device, where the call request message includes a first user identity of a calling user and a call authentication identifier; the network authentication server sending a call authentication request to an enterprise authentication server corresponding to the first user identity, where the call authentication request includes the call authentication identifier; the network authentication server receiving a call authentication success indication from the enterprise authentication server, where the call authentication success indication indicates that authentication succeeds; and the network authentication server sending target data to a called device, where the target data includes identity information of the calling user and/or information of an enterprise to which the calling user belongs.