Patent ID: 6360254
Filing Date: 2002-03-19
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
In a Web site system in which different users are provided access to different private resources, a computer-implemented method of providing a user secure access to a private resource over a publicly-accessible network without requiring the user to enter authentication information, the method comprising:obtaining an email address of the user; generating a token using a token generation method that distributes tokens substantially randomly over a token space, the token space selected to be sufficiently large to inhibit identification of a valid token by trial and error, wherein generating the token comprises generating a token value of at least 64 bits; combining the token and a predefined character string to form a uniform resource locator (URL) which corresponds to the private resource; generating an email message which includes the URL, and transmitting the email message to the email address of the user; and in response to receiving a request for the URL over the publicly-accessible network from a user, accessing the resource without requiring the user to enter authentication information.