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Secure Web-Site Access with Tickets and Message-Dependent Digests

November 27, 2008

Although there are various methods for restricting access to documents stored on a World Wide Web (WWW) site (a Web site), none of the widely used methods is completely suitable for restricting access to Web applications hosted on an otherwise publicly accessible Web site. A new technique, however, provides a mix of features well suited for restricting Web-site or Web-application access to authorized users, including the following: secure user authentication, tamper-resistant sessions, simple access to user state variables by server-side applications, and clean session terminations. This technique, called message-dependent digests with tickets, or MDDT, maintains secure user sessions by passing single-use nonces (tickets) and message-dependent digests of user credentials back and forth between client and server. Appendix 2 provides a working implementation of MDDT with PHP server-side code and JavaScript client-side code.

Publication Year 2008
Title Secure Web-Site Access with Tickets and Message-Dependent Digests
DOI 10.3133/tm7B1
Authors David I. Donato
Publication Type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Series Title Techniques and Methods
Series Number 7-B1
Index ID tm7B1
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse
USGS Organization Eastern Geographic Science Center