AUTOMATIC, CONNECTION-BASED TERMINAL OR USER AUTHENTICATION IN COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

摘要

The aim of the invention is to permit the automatic identification of access rights to protected areas in networks, in particular on the Internet. This i s achieved by a method for automatically identifying access rights to protecte d areas in a first network (2) using a unique connection identifier of a secon d network (1), in particular in the interconnection of networks that constitut es the Internet. According to the invention: a unique identifier of the first network (2) is dynamically or statically assigned to a terminal, during or prior to the latter's connection to the first network (2); a combination of at least the unique connection identifier of the second network (1) and the unique identifier of the first network (2), said combination being stored in an authentication unit (16), is polled when the terminal requests access to the protected area, in order to determine the unique connection identifier o f the second network (1) using the unique identifier of the first network (2); and the existence of access rights to the protected area for the unique connection identifier of the second network (1) is then verified.