Patent ID: 7219231

Claim:
A system for authentication, comprising: a processor circuit having a processor and a memory; and an authentication system stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the authentication system comprising: a plurality of authentication agents, each of the authentication agents authenticating at least one user parameter by performing at least one authentication task; an authentication manager that requests each of the authentication agents to authenticate an unauthenticated user parameter until all of the authentication agents have been requested to authenticate the unauthenticated user parameter and the authenticated user parameter is authenticated by at least one of the authentication agents, unless one of the authentication agents fails to authenticate the unauthenticated user parameter; wherein the unauthenticated user parameter that all of the authentication agents are requested to authenticate is identical for each of the authentication agents; and wherein each authentication agents is configured to transmit a valid response that indicates to the authentication manager that the respective authentication agent has authenticated the unauthenticated user parameter even though the respective authentication agent is not configured to perform a respective authentication task that is necessary to authenticate the unauthenticated user parameter.