Introduction

1.1 Concept of Unique ID

Unique ID can be defined as a string that can be used to uniquely identify a person or an object. We encounter different types of unique ids every day. For instance, in a super market all the items are bar coded with unique ids. Government projects such as Aadhar, Social Security Number among others aim at giving unique ids to citizens for welfare schemes. On the web too, users have a plethora of unique ids, which can usually be their email ids or login ids for social networking web sites. Open ID is one such ID that allows a user to be authenticated by certain co-operating websites such as Google, Facebook among others.
Unique IDs can be random strings or they can be defined by the user. In this project we have used random numbers as unique ids. The random strings that are easy to remember, such as all digits same are eliminated.

1.2 Concept of User Authentication

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of an individual, usually based on a username and password. Authentication merely ensures that the individual is who he or she claims to be, but says nothing about the access rights of the individual. In the real world an individual can be authenticated using his signature or biometrics. Signatures are vulnerable to forgery and hence recently there has been a shift towards biometrics. Fingerprints, iris scan, body heat signature and dental records are some of the commonly used biometrics. On the web users are authenticated using their user name and password combination. RSA token is another secure authentication method. Google recently introduced a two-step verification process, where in addition to the user name and password user has to provide an additional security key that is usually sent to them by SMS or other means.