Topic23

Topic 23
The need to authenticate information by Vaibhav Bhandari

What is authentication? And why is it so important?

In a world full of innovative ideas, authenticating information online is becoming necessary, as its presence prevents us from facing consequences that lead towards several ethical and social issues. Authentication is the act of establishing or confirming something. This is becoming a neccesity and is vitally important, as it provides a safe and trustable network. In more simpler words authentication is the process which enables to verify a digital identity of a sender. It is a key aspect of trust-based identity which provides a codified assurance of one user to an another user. A common example of this is a request to log in. This can be things such as credit card numbers, and passwords.

Places where information needs to be authenticated

• Accesing Email’s • Using an Internet Banking System • Withdrawing cash from an ATM machine


 * In all these places a login is needed, therefore inorder to login to the system it requires for the user to verify his identity by codified passwords.

What are the consequences if there is no authentication?

In simple words if there is no authentication it would enable anyone to access any indentity and manipulate or destroy data. More precisely it would become possible for anyone to login into any place, where in the presence of authentication it would require a user to verify his/her identity. This would mean that systems without the presence of authentication wouldn’t require a login and anyone could log onto anywhere that they wish to login. Hence this brings up various consequnces which result into several social and ethical issues.

Visual Demonstration



A demerit of Authentication – Phishing

One of the most major consequences faced because of authenticating information is as a result of phishing. Phishing is a criminal activity using fraud computer techniques (social engineering). The main objective of phishing is to fraudely acquire sensative information. Meaning to falsely acquire credit card numbers and passwords. This is usually done by sending a disguised email or a disguised announcement and asking the users to verify their identity. In this case they are not actually veryfying their identity but they are actually providing their sensative information to the phishers. Major questions to be considere when writing the IB exam-

1. What is an alternative to authentication? Is it reliable? Is it secure? 2. What is a solution to the demerits of authentication? (What is a solution to phishing?) 3. What are the impacts of Authentication globally and locally? (What are the issues arised by phishing?)