Patent ID: 8528078

Claim:
A method for authenticating a user to grant access to data by the user: at a Web server, responsive to receiving by a first channel a user name and password that are valid from a user computer, determining that a cookie previously deposited on the user computer includes a machine ID and a login key that are invalid based on respectively comparing the machine ID with a test machine ID and a stored key; responsive to determining that the machine ID and the login key are invalid, (i) receiving an audible phrase over a second channel, the second channel being a different type of channel than the first channel and (ii) determining an access right for the user computer by: comparing the audible phrase to a stored biometric associated with the user; responsive to determining that the audible phrase matches the stored biometric, providing a pass code in a user-defined human-readable language to the user computer over the second channel subsequent to determining that the audible phrase matches the stored biometric; and responsive to receiving the pass code from the user computer over the first channel, granting access to the data to the user computer.