Patent ID: 7206934

Claim:
A system, comprising: a network; and a plurality of peer nodes coupled to the network and configured to: store identity information for authenticating user identifiers in a distributed index, wherein each peer node stores a zone of the distributed index configured to store identity information for a subset of the user identifiers at locations in the zone indicated by hashes of the subset of user identifiers; receive from a node on the network a request for authentication, wherein the request for authentication comprises a user identifier; generate a hash of the user identifier; determine if identity information is stored at a location in the distributed index indicated by the hash of the user identifier; wherein to determine if identity information is stored at a location in the distributed index indicated by the hash of the user identifier, the plurality of peer nodes is further configured to: determine a zone of the distributed index corresponding to a subset of the user identifiers indicated by the hash of the user identifier; and determine if the identity information is stored at a location in the zone indicated by the hash of the user identifier; and if identity information is stored at the location in the distributed index indicated by the hash of the user identifier, send a request for additional identity information to the node.