Patent ID: 7596697

Claim:
A article of manufacture for user authentication, comprising computer readable storage media; and computer programming stored on the storage media, wherein the stored computer programming is configured to be readable by one or more computers and thereby cause the one or more computers to operate so as to: receive, from a first user and by an authentication server, a first authentication request transformed with a private portion of a first type split private key associated with a first asymmetric key pair having a public key and the first type split private key; authenticate the first user for a first level of network access based upon the received first request being transformed with a private portion of the first type split private key; receive, from a second user and by the authentication server, a second authentication request transformed with a private portion of a second type split private key associated with a second asymmetric key pair having a public key and the second type split private key; and authenticate the second user for a second level of network access based upon the received second request being transformed with a private portion of the second type split private key; wherein the private portion of the first type split private key is based on a password of the first user and another factor, different than the user password, with both factors being under the control of the user, and the private portion of the second type split private key is based on only a password of the second user.