Authentication

Definition

The process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be.

Authentication is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be. When using MIT Touchstone or Shibboleth, the authentication is not performed on the application server or SP. Instead traffic is redirected to a trusted third party, the IdP, and the user may authenticate by providing a username and password, an X.509 certificate, a Kerberos ticket, or in some cases use OpenID.

See also

MIT Touchstone authentication system
Shibboleth