Property Protection and User Authentication in IP Networks through Challenge-Response Mechanisms

Authentication is the way of identifying an individual. The techniques used to accomplish such practice strongly depend on the involved parties, their interconnection, and the required level of security. In all cases, authentication is used to enforce property protection, and may be specifically intended for the copyright protection of digital contents published on the Internet. This work introduces the basic concepts of authentication explaining their relationship with property protection. The basic functionalities of Challenge-Response frameworks are presented, together with several applications and the future trends.