Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L63/00—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security
  • H04L63/08—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for authentication of entities
  • H04L63/083—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for authentication of entities using passwords
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F21/00—Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
  • G06F21/30—Authentication, i.e. establishing the identity or authorisation of security principals
  • G06F21/31—User authentication
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L63/00—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security
  • H04L63/10—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for controlling access to devices or network resources
  • H04L63/102—Entity profiles
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L63/00—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security
  • H04L63/16—Implementing security features at a particular protocol layer
  • H04L63/168—Implementing security features at a particular protocol layer above the transport layer
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/02—Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/10—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network
  • H04L67/1097—Protocols in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Definitions

• a website will frequently request that a user provide personal information in order to use a service that the website provides. For example, the website may gather personal information to register a new account for the user, to authenticate the user, or to process the user's payment. In order to gather this information from the user, the website will often present the user with a "form".
• a form, or web form is a structured web document with spaces, called “form fields”, reserved for entering information. Forms are a ubiquitous means for gathering user input on the World Wide Web.
• An identity thief may present a user with a web form— often resembling or exactly mirroring a web form of a trusted website — that requests personal information. The unsuspecting user may then provide the criminal with passwords, credit card numbers, or other personal information.
• the identity metasystem provides a secure mechanism by which a user can manage and use digital identities.
• the identity metasystem makes digital information exchange more uniform and user-friendly, and helps prevent identity theft by providing a secure means for users to provide information over the internet to verifiable parties.
• Some of the user's digital identities may be self-issued, whereas others may be provided by a trusted third-party.
• the entity whether it be the user or a third- party— that issues a digital identity is called an "identity provider”.
• a party, such as a website, that requests and uses information from a digital identity is referred to as a "relying party”.
• identity selector software will allow the user to select an information card that represents a digital identity to be sent to the site. Once a digital identity is selected, the identity selector facilitates the secure exchange of encrypted packages of digital identity data called "security tokens" between the identity provider and the relying party.
• identity selector facilitates the secure exchange of encrypted packages of digital identity data called "security tokens" between the identity provider and the relying party.
• MICROSOFT ® WINDOWS CARDSPACE ® is an example of identity selector software.
• Embodiments described herein relate to the use of digital identities to populate and submit form field data. Embodiments such as these have the potential to enable websites to be compatible with digital identities with less development effort than that involved in making a website compatible with the identity metasystem as it has previously been implemented. Embodiments described herein also provide a mechanism for the automatic generation and maintenance of usernames and passwords.
• a computer application obtains a form field specification from a website that has a form.
• the form field specification identifies form fields of the form, to which data can be provided using a digital identity. Once the form field specification is obtained, the computer application prompts a user to select or create a digital identity.
• a computer application uses this digital identity to obtain data with which to populate one or more of the form fields of the form.
• the computer application populates the form fields of the form with the obtained data, and then the form field data is submitted to the website.
• a computer application obtains username and password parameters from a website or an application.
• the computer application automatically generates a username and password that meet the specified parameters.
• the generated username and password pair is securely stored by the computer application.
• the username and password pair can be recalled by the computer application for future authentication with the website or application.
• Figure 2 illustrates an environment in which techniques for form filling using digital identities and in which automatic passwords techniques may be accomplished;
• Figure 3 illustrates a flowchart of a method for web form filling using data obtained with digital identities;
• Figure 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method for the automatic generation and storage of secure username and password pairs
• Figure 5 illustrates a flowchart of a method that incorporates both web form filling and automatic password generation using digital identities.
• At least some embodiments described herein relate to form filling using digital identities and/or to the automatic generation of secure passwords.
• Embodiments described herein have the potential to enable websites to be compatible with digital identities with less development effort than that involved in making a website compatible with the identity metasystem as it has previously been implemented.
• embodiments described herein may streamline and increase the security of passwords-based authentication mechanisms and relieve computer users of burdens involved with password management for multiple websites and applications.
• a website that has a form makes information available about the form fields that are contained within the form.
• the information may optionally include certain restrictions about the types and formats of data that can be input to the form fields.
• a user is prompted to select or create a digital identity.
• the selected digital identity may be associated with certain information about the user, and may be used to populate the various form fields of the form.
• the data from the selected digital identity is formatted such that it meets any restrictions that have been specified by the website. The data is then submitted to the website.
• a secure username and password pair may be generated to use with registration at a website or application and for future authentication at the website or application.
• the secure username and password pair may be associated with a digital identity.
• Figure 1 illustrates an example computing system 100.
• Computing systems are now increasingly taking a wide variety of forms. Computing systems may, for example, be handheld devices, appliances, laptop computers, desktop computers, mainframes, distributed computing systems, or even devices that have not conventionally considered a computing system.
• computing system is defined broadly as including any device or system (or combination thereof) that includes at least one processor, and a memory capable of having thereon computer-executable instructions that may be executed by the processor.
• the memory may take any form and may depend on the nature and form of the computing system.
• a computing system may be distributed over a network environment and may include multiple constituent computing systems.
• a computing system 100 typically includes at least one processing unit 102 and memory 104.
• the memory 104 may be physical system memory, which may be volatile, non-volatile, or some combination of the two.
• the term “memory” may also be used herein to refer to non- volatile mass storage such as physical storage media.
• module can refer to software objects or routines that execute on the computing system.
• the different components, modules, engines, and services described herein may be implemented as objects or processes that execute on the computing system (e.g., as separate threads).
• Computing system 100 may also contain communication channels 108 that allow the computing system 100 to communicate with other message processors over, for example, network 110.
• Communication channels 108 are examples of communications media.
• Communications media typically embody computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and include any information-delivery media.
• communications media include wired media, such as wired networks and direct-wired connections, and wireless media such as acoustic, radio, infrared, and other wireless media.
• the term "computer-readable media" as used herein includes both storage media and communications media.
• Embodiments within the scope of the present invention also include computer- readable media for carrying or having computer-executable instructions or data structures stored thereon.
• Such computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer.
• Such computer-readable media can comprise physical storage and/or memory media such as RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carry or store desired program code means in the form of computer-executable instructions or data structures and which can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer.
• Computer-executable instructions comprise, for example, instructions and data which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions.
• Figure 2 illustrates a sample environment 200 in which techniques for form filling using digital identities as described herein may occur.
• the techniques for automated secure password generation may also be performed in the sample environment 200.
• Figure 2 contains a client computing system 201 that may be, for example, structured like the computing system 100 of Figure 1.
• the client computing system 201 is connected to a network 205.
• the network 205 may be the internet, or alternatively, the network 205 may be any network which connects the client computing system 201 to other components of the environment that are shown in Figure 2 and described hereafter.
• a web server 202 which may be structured like the computing system 100 of Figure 1, contains computer executable instructions by which the web server 202 hosts a web site 210 that can be accessed by the client computer 201 through the network 205.
• the website 210 may contain one or more web pages 21 IA-D (sometimes referred to collectively in this description as "web pages 211").
• Each of the web pages 211 may contain metadata 215, and visible elements 216 which may include both visible interactive elements and visible non-interactive elements.
• the web pages 211 may, in the traditional manner, be described using HTML, or, alternatively, may be provided to the client computing system in other languages, scripts, protocols or formats that are known in the art or that are to be developed in the future.
• the web site 210 may be hosted across multiple web servers that may be similar to the depicted web server 202. Additionally, the website 210 and/or web pages 211 may be provided through a distributed architecture, such as, for example, a distributed architecture that implements mechanisms which allow for web pages and other content to be mirrored and distributed across multiple web servers in order to facilitate a higher number of users, higher bandwidth availability, faster connection speeds, and so forth. Indeed, the techniques described herein may be compatible with any environment that involves forms, regardless of the number or type of web servers (if any) that implement the environment, and regardless of the means by which the web pages and other content might be distributed to the end-users in the environment.
• the web site 210 contains a form that contains multiple form fields.
• the form 212 is illustrated as including form fields 213A - 213D (referred to collectively as "form fields 213").
• form fields 213 are illustrated as including form fields 213A - 213D (referred to collectively as "form fields 213").
• web page 21 IA is shown in some detail, some or all of the features attributed to web page 21 IA may optionally be attributed to other web pages 211 as well. For instance, one or more of the other web pages 211 may also have a form. However, typically, the number, identity, and layout of form fields within a form may often differ from one form to another.
• a "form” is a structured document with spaces reserved for a user to input information
• a "form field” is a space in a form where a user or other entity can enter a specific item of information.
• the web page 21 IA of the web site 210 may also contain a form field specification 214 that references one or more (but not necessarily all) of the form fields 213.
• the form field specification 214 and the references contained therein provide information to the client computing system 201 that identifies the form fields that should be filled in by form filling methods and techniques described herein.
• the form 212, form fields 213 and form field specification 214 may all be contained within a single web page 21 IA, or, alternatively, may be parts of multiple web pages such as the illustrated web pages 211.
• the form 212, form fields 213, and form field specification 214 may be made available to the client computing system 201 through means other than conventional, graphically rendered web pages, such as through a direct information exchange between the web server 202 and the client computing system 201, or through applications, including web applications, that are not considered to be traditional web pages.
• the form field specification 214 may be included as part of the metadata 215 of the web page.
• the data in the form field specification 214 may be organized as any of multiple types of data structures that are known in the art, or that are yet to be developed. For example, one conventional mechanism is to organize data structures using markup language such as, for example, in an XML or HTML data structure. Alternatively, the form field specification 214 may simply be described within one or more tags within the markup language (such as HTML) that describes the web page.
• the form field specification 214 may be provided to the client computing system in a more direct manner through the network 205 such as through any of various means that are known in the art or have yet to be developed, including, for example, data packets sent across the network through a known protocol such as TCP or UDP.
• TCP Transmission Control Protocol
• UDP User Datagram Protocol
• the form field specification 214 might optionally specify one or more form field restrictions for the form fields that are referenced therein. These form field restrictions are often parameters or limitations on the data that can be input into the form fields that the form field specification 214 references. Examples of form field restrictions include (but are not limited to) the following: whether a specified form field is required or not, a minimum and/or maximum length restriction for data input to the form field, a required character set to be used when filling in the form field, required or prohibited character types, and so forth.
• a form field specification 214 may also include form field restrictions that are specific to username and password form fields that are referenced in the form field specification 214. This would be an example of a "username and password specification", as discussed below with respect to Figure 4.
• the client computing system 201 may display the visible elements 216 of the web page 21 IA in an implementation of web browser software 218 which contains computer- readable instructions that cause the client computing system 201 to perform, in addition to functionalities that are commonly performed by web browsers, the methods and techniques described for form filling using digital identities that are described in further detail hereinafter.
• a user 230 may interact with the client computing system 201, and particularly with the web browser software 218.
• embodiments described herein are described in conjunction with web browser software 218, it is understood that computer-executable code which causes the client computing system 201 to perform any of the techniques described herein may be incorporated into various types of computer applications, including applications implemented in software and/or hardware.
• the client computing system 201 includes one or more digital identity references 220A-E (referred to collectively as “digital identity references 220") which reference one or more digital identities that a user may have at her disposition.
• digital identity references 220 may be stored in the various computer-readable media that were described previously with respect to Figure 1.
• the digital identity references 220 may be stored in non- volatile storage media that is local to the client computing system 201, or alternatively, the digital identity references 220 may be stored on a portable device such as a flash memory drive or a smart card.
• a portable device such as a flash memory drive or a smart card.
• the digital identity references 220 contain information that allows computer- executable code, executed by the client computing system 201, to connect to one or more identity providers, as illustrated by identity providers 203 A-D & 203 S (referred to hereinafter as "identity providers 203").
• Identity providers 203 may be implemented in servers that are structured like the computing system 100 that is illustrated in Figure 1. A connection to these third-party identity providers is provided to the client computing system 201 through the network 205.
• third-party identity providers 203 A-D include government agencies which provide digital identities, credit card providers, clubs or groups in which the user 230 has a membership or affiliation, certificate issuing agencies such as VERISIGN ® INC., and so forth. These are only a few examples of third-party identity providers, as virtually any entity that provides information for a user in the form of a digital identity may be considered a third-party identity provider.
• digital identity reference 220E may reference self-issued digital identities which are issued by a self-issued identity provider 203S (also referred to as "self-issued identity provider software 203S").
• a self-issued identity provider 203 S may be implemented in computer executable code that resides in the memory of the client computing system 201 and that, when executed, allows a user 230 to create, store and/or access digital identities which contain some information about the user.
• the computer-executable code which comprises the self-issued identity provider 203 S may be incorporated as part of the web browser software 218, as part of the identity selector software 219 (discussed in detail below), as part of another software product, or, alternatively, as stand-alone software.
• This flexibility in the management of the self-issued identity provider 203 S is represented symbolically in Figure 2 by having the self-issued identity provider 203 S only partially overlap with the web browser software 218.
• the client computing system 201 may include identity selector software 219.
• the identity selector software 219 presents a graphical interface to the user 230 wherein graphical representations of the digital identity references 220 (and thereby the corresponding identities) are displayed.
• the identity selector software 219 also provides a means by which the user 230 may provide a selection from the graphical representations of digital identity references that are being displayed.
• the identity selector software 219 may be incorporated as part of the web browser software 218 or, alternatively, may be part of a separate or standalone application. This is symbolically represented in Figure 2 by having the identity selector software 219 be only partially overlapping with the web browser software 218. In some implementations, in which the identity selector software 219 is incorporated outside of web browser software 218, there may be no need for web browser software 218 to even be present on the client computing system 201.
• the digital identity references 220 may be presented to the user by the identity selector software 219 as information cards or other visual representations of digital identities.
• Each information card may provide the user with a visual display of information about the digital identities that the card represents.
• digital identities might represent a government issued digital identity that claims the user is a certain age.
• the digital identity reference might contain a reference to a government identity provider, which may be, for example, one of the third-party identity providers 203 A-D. In this example, suppose the government identity provider is willing to vouch for and verify the claim of the user's age.
• the information card that represents the digital identity reference might provide a graphical display that identifies to the user that the identity provider which provides the digital identity that the digital identity reference refers to has capabilities to issue an age-verification identity.
• Forms may be used in WORDPERFECT ® documents or in MICROSOFT ® OFFICE documents. Forms may be used in various web applications that are not typically though of as "web pages", such as web applications that are developed using MACROMEDIA ® FLASH® technology. Indeed, forms may be used in virtually any standalone or other computer application that requires a user to input data.
• identity metasystem a platform that involves methods for digital identity exchange, including the use of identity selectors and identity providers, is commonly known in the art as an "identity metasystem.”
• identity metasystem a platform that involves methods for digital identity exchange, including the use of identity selectors and identity providers.
• identity metasystem a platform that involves methods for digital identity exchange, including the use of identity selectors and identity providers.
• identity metasystem a platform that involves methods for digital identity exchange, including the use of identity selectors and identity providers.
• identity metasystem MICROSOFT ® WINDOWS CARDSPACE ® includes, among other things, an implementation of identity selector software which presents a user with information cards that contain references to one or more digital identities that are provided by identity providers.
• Figure 3 illustrates a method 300 for populating form fields with data obtained using a digital identity.
• the method 300 may be carried out in an environment similar to the environment 200 that is illustrated in Figure 2.
• One or more computing systems such as the client computing system 201 and other computing systems connected to the client computing system 201 through the network 205, may execute computer-executable instructions contained on computer-readable media which cause the computing system(s) to perform the acts described in the method 300.
• the method 300 includes an act 301 of obtaining, from a web site, a form field specification that specifies form fields of a form.
• the client computing system 201 may obtain the form field specification 214 of the form 212 from the web site 210.
• the form 212 specifies a number of form fields 213, and that the form field specification 214 may reference one or more of the form fields 213.
• the form field specification 214 may optionally specify one or more form field restrictions for one or more of the form fields 213 of the form 212, as previously discussed.
• the form field specification 214 obtained in act 301 may refer to form fields 213 of a form (referred to herein as a "registration form") 212 that is for registering a new account for the user 230 at the web site 210.
• the web site 210 may, alternatively or additionally, contain another form (referred to herein as a "login form”), also of a similar format as form 212, that is for authenticating or logging in to the web site 210.
• forms may be used for any one or more of these or a variety of other purposes.
• one of the form fields 213 could be a password field — for a new password in the case of a registration form or for an existing password in the case of a login form.
• form fields 213 could be a user name field, credit card information fields, a passport identifier field, a country of citizenship field, an age field, a marital status field, address information fields, criminal record fields, occupation fields, and so forth.
• the principles described herein are not limited to the types of information that are described in association with the form fields 213.
• the form fields 213 may consist of textual information.
• the information might additionally or alternatively be a file, a list, a graphically displayed object, a calendar date selection, or any other type of information.
• the principles described herein have no limit to the type of the information that is utilized, and embodiments may utilize one or more of a variety of different types of information.
• the method 300 illustrated in Figure 3 also includes an act 302 of prompting a user of the computing system to either select or create a digital identity that will be used to provide at least one value into at least one of the form fields of the form.
• the user 230 may be prompted by the identity selector software 219 to select a digital identity reference from the one or more digital identity references 220 that are available to the user.
• the digital identity references 220 may be presented to the user in the form of information cards or other graphical representations of digital identities, and each graphical representation may present to the user 230, for example, a brief synopsis of the digital identity that the graphical representation represents.
• the user 230 may choose to create a new digital identity, rather than to select a pre-existing digital identity.
• the self-issued identity provider software 203 S may be activated, and the user 230 may provide input — for example, through a graphical interface— that the self-issued identity provider software 203 S may use to create a digital identity to be used in the method 300.
• the user 230 may choose to select one of an existing set of digital identity references 220A-E.
• the chosen digital identity reference may reference an existing digital identity from a third party identity provider 203 A-D or alternatively may reference a digital identity from the self-issued identity provider 203 S.
• the next act 303 in the method 300 consists of obtaining, using the digital identity reference that the user selected or created in the previous act 302, data that may be used to populate one or more of the form fields 213 of the form 212.
• data that may be used to populate one or more of the form fields 213 of the form 212.
• the client computing system 201 connects through the network 205 to the third-party identity provider 203 A that the selected digital identity reference 220A refers to.
• the third party identity provider 220A may then provide the client computing system 201 with the data fields (also known as "claims") that the selected digital identity contains.
• the data may be transferred through some secure means or protocol that is known in the art or that is developed in the future.
• the data may be packaged into any of a variety of different types of packages that are collectively referred to as security tokens, both in this description and in the art.
• a security token may be any type of data package that is known in the art or which may be developed in the future, including secure data packages such as, for example, SAML tokens.
• the self- issued identity provider 203 S that resides on the client computing system 201 may provide a security token that represents data included within the user-selected or user-created digital identity.
• This data may be encapsulated in a package that may be similar to a security token, as discussed in the previous paragraph.
• the data obtained from the self-issued digital identity may be communicated directly to software that is performing the method 300.
• the method 300 includes an act 304 of populating one or more of the form fields 213 specified in the form field specification 214 with the obtained data.
• the data received in the previous act 303 may need to be extracted from a security token and/or transformed before it can be used to populate one of the form fields 213.
• the security token may need to be "opened” and/or parsed in order to extract simple textual data or other data (in the case of non-textual form fields) that is a compatible input to the form fields 213 that are specified in the form specification 214.
• the data may be formatted or transformed so that it meets any or all of the optional form field restrictions that are indicated in the form field specification 214.
• the method 300 involves an act 305 of submitting the populated form fields to the web site 210.
• This act 305 of data submission may be performed by the client computing system 201 automatically and without further user interaction beyond the user interaction that may have occurred when the user 230 selected a digital identity in a previous act 302. Alternatively, the user 230 may need to provide some further interaction to the client computing system 201 before the populated form fields may be submitted.
• the user 230 may need to click a confirmation button in a dialog box in order to confirm that the form 212 is ready to be submitted.
• clicking a button in a dialog box is one common example of a user interaction, the user may be required to provide one or more of many interactions that are possible between the user 230 and the client computing system 201 before the data is submitted to the website 210 in this act 305.
• the manner by which the populated form fields are submitted to the web server 202 may involve the web browser software 218 on the client computing system submitting the data to the web server 202 in the same way that the data would have been submitted had the user 230 manually entered the data into the form 212 and submitted the form to the website 230.
• the web browser software 218 may simulate a user clicking a "submit" button or interacting with a similar user-interface element.
• the web browser software 218 may simply send an HTTP request to the web server 202 that contains the populated form field information.
• the web browser software 218 and/or identity selector software 219 may attempt to detect that the web site 210 is compatible with the techniques of method 300 before proceeding with the method 300. As one example of how this compatibility detection may occur, the web browsing software 218 may detect that the web page 21 IA contains a properly formatted form field specification 214 before proceeding with the execution of the method 300.
• the web browsing software 218 may recognize that the web page 21 IA does not have a properly formatted form field specification, and will not proceed with the execution of the method 300.
• This form field specification detection technique is simply one example of how the methods and techniques described herein may be selectively performed based on the existence of some condition; the techniques described herein could potentially depend on one or more conditions that may be different than or in addition to the one used in this illustrative example.
• the detection of some condition such as is described in the example described in this paragraph, is entirely optional for method 300 and other techniques described herein; embodiments may exist which do not depend on the existence of any condition at all.
• Figure 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method 400 for automatically and securely generating a username and password pair.
• the method 400 includes an act 401 of obtaining a username and password specification of an application or website.
• the username and password specification may be contained in the form field specification 214 or may be communicated by other means of transferring data across a network 205, as discussed previously.
• the username and password specification could comprise some other structure by which the application indicates that a username and password are requested to access at least some of the functionality of the application. Additionally, the username and password specification may optionally specify various restrictions on usernames and passwords that are to be provided to the application or website.
• the method 400 includes an act 402 of automatically generating a username and password pair which conforms to the obtained username and password specification.
• the generated username and password should meet all of the restrictions, limitations and parameters that were included in the username and password specification, if any were included at all.
• the generation process could optionally also impose its own restrictions on usernames and passwords that may be generated by the process, in addition to restrictions that are specified in the username and password specification.
• the generation process could impose its own restriction against using dictionary words or names, or it could always make passwords that are the maximum length supported by the website or application.
• the restrictions of the specification are added upon or made more restrictive by the generation process.
• the generation process could impose a restriction that any generated username and password pair should be unique from username and password pairs previously created for other applications or websites during the generation process.
• the generation process 400 includes an act 403 of storing the generated username and password such that it can be recalled by the computing system for future authentication at the application or website.
• the username and password may be stored either locally, or, alternatively, on a device or storage media that is not included within the client computing system 201. There is no limit to how the username and password may be stored.
• the username and password may be stored in an encrypted and secure manner such that only the application which generated the pair can decrypt the stored username and password pair for future use.
• the username and password pair may be stored in more than one place; for example, the user may have the stored username and password on both the client computing system and a portable computing device such as a laptop, PDA, or cell phone.
• the pair may be securely stored on portable storage media such as flash memory or on a portable device such as a smart card, such that the generated username and password pair can be used on any computer which the user 230 has occasion to access.
• portable storage media such as flash memory
• a portable device such as a smart card
• the generated username and password pair may be used to automatically authenticate to the website or application for which the pair was generated.
• computer executable code on the client computing system 201 may cause that the generated pair be used to automatically login to the web site 210.
• the generated username and password pair may be used in act 411 to automatically login to the application.
• the computing system may prompt the user (as illustrated in the act 421) to select or create a digital identity to associate with the generated username and password pair. Once the user selects or creates a digital identity to associate with the generated pair, the generated pair is associated with the digital identity as illustrated in act 422. In addition to being associated with the digital identity, the generated pair may optionally be associated with the website such that, when the website is visited subsequently, the username and password have a known association with the website and this association may be used to provide additional authentication functionality to applications such as the web browser software 218 or the identity selector software 219.
• the optional acts 421 and 422 could be performed before the act 403 of storing the generated username and password pair.
• the optional acts 421-423 as an example of a future authentication use, when the user 230 navigates to a web site 210 which is compatible with techniques described herein and the web site 210 requires that the user 230 authenticate in order to access certain features contained therein, the user is prompted in act 423 to select a digital identity. This prompting to select a digital identity may be done in a similar manner as that described previously with respect to act 302 of the method 300.
• the act 423 which includes using the generated pair for automatic authentication at the web site 210 after the user 230 has selected a digital identity, may involve the username and password pair being used to populate form fields 213 which are then submitted to the website 210, similarly to the techniques for populating and submitting form field data that are illustrated in acts 303-305 of method 300, as illustrated in Figure 3.
• One advantage of embodiments which involve the method 400 illustrated in Figure 4 is that the user 230 would not need to remember or write down the generated username and password pair. Additionally, it would be difficult or impossible for another person to obtain the username and password for unauthorized use.
• the method 400 could be used to supply a username and a password for a web site, in which case the environment of Figure 2 applies.
• the username and password may be supplied to the web site 210 through a form 212.
• the techniques of Figure 4 may be utilized in conjunction with a method such as that of Figure 3.
• a username and password specification may be obtained from the web site 210 as part of the form field specification 214 obtained in act 301.
• the generated username and password may be submitted to the form 212 in a similar manner as is illustrated in act 305 and described herein with reference to act 305.
• the client computing system 201 may include web browser software 218, and the method 400 may be executed by computer executable code that is executed as part of or in conjunction with the web browser software 218 or identity selector software 219.
• the method 400 could be executed by a stand-alone application which contains computer executable instructions that perform the method, or the method could be executed by a code module that is part of a larger application or code library.
• Such a method 500 is illustrated in Figure 5 and may allow for significant automation of both the registration and the authentication processes that are commonly used to access features provided by the website 210, among other benefits.
• the method 500 may include an act 501 of obtaining a form field specification 214, which specifies a plurality of form fields 213 of a form 212.
• the form field specification 214 may include form field restrictions for one or more of the form fields 213 of the form 212, as has been previously described.
• This act 501 is similar to the act 301 illustrated in Figure 3.
• the user 230 is prompted by the client computing system 201 to select or create a digital identity.
• the digital identity is used to obtain data to populate at least one of the form fields 213 of the form 212 that are specified in the form field specification 214.
• This may involve the use of digital identities from third-party identity providers 203 A-D or self-issued digital identity providers 203 S and may involve the transfer and parsing of security tokens that has been discussed previously in conjunction with act 303.
• the digital identity may be used to obtain data from various different sources, as illustrated in act 503. This is further illustrated in Figure 5 by three boxes 511, 512 & 513 which are contained within the box that represents act 503. Thus, the performance of act 503 may consist of any one or more of the acts described depicted in 511, 512 & 513 and described below.
• data may be obtained directly from information contained within or represented by the digital identity.
• the user may be accessing the website 210 to register a new account, and the website may be requesting information about the user in order to register the new account.
• Techniques for obtaining data from a digital identity may be similar to those described above, for example, with respect to act 303 of Figure 3.
• act 512 illustrated in act 512, wherein the website 210 is asking the user to supply a new username and password, the digital identity may be used to generate a new and unique username and password pair, using a similar process as that discussed previously in conjunction with method 400. This act 512 may occur as an alternative or in addition to acts 511 and/or 513.
• the digital identity may be used to retrieve a previously generated username and password pair and to supply this generated pair to the website 210 in order to authenticate the user 230.
• the data is used to populate one or more of the form fields 213 of the form 212 that were specified in the form field specification 214.
• the populated form fields are automatically submitted, as illustrated in act 505. Acts 504 and 505 have close analogues in acts 304 and 305 of method 300, and the descriptions provided in conjunction with Figure 3 may be applicable.

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