Environment-Based Two-Factor Authentication without Geo-Location

摘要

The invention provides a method and system for accomplishing two-factor authentication for internet transactions, wherein the user of the device through which the transaction is negotiated needs to give only a single yes/no verification to the system. In some embodiments, the second factor authentication is automated without any action on the part of the user. The method calls on the user's wireless voice device for the detection of environmental wireless signals (“Short Distance Wireless Information” or “SDWI”), and uses these signals collectively as a “fingerprint” that uniquely identifies the wireless signals near the wireless voice device. The system stores these SDWI fingerprints, and later uses the stored information to establish whether or not the user's wireless voice device is near a previously-recognized SDWI.

主权项

1. A method of activating an account, comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving a mobile voice device's phone number (b) receiving the Internet user username or get user identifier (c) initiating an SMS transfer to the mobile voice device, where such SMS originates from a phone number local to the user's phone number, contains an unique access link to a website that is associated with a unique pairing code, and where the unique access link is sent via SMS and not via the Internet (d) receiving a message that contains the unique pairing code and unique mobile voice device identifier, where that message is sent from software installed on the mobile phone and such message is sent to a server (e) requesting that the user reply via SMS with a specific code (f) receiving the user's reply via SMS with the specific code (g) receiving the phone number from which the user replies via SMS (h) receiving the phone number from which the used for sending the SMS to the user (i) checking the phone number from which the user replies matches with the phone number the SMS was sent to (j) checking whether the unique code in the reply matches with the requested code (k) checking whether the phone number the user reply to is the same phone number the SMS was sent from, and (l) if the user's reply in step 6 matches with the requested code from step 5, and if the phone number the user replies from matches with the phone number the SMS sent to, and if the phone number the user replies to matches with the phone number the SMS was sent from, then activating the user's account.