Patent ID: 8566914

Claim:
A network authentication system for authenticating a network data communication device being used by a user having a network account, the system comprising: a network communication interface configured to electronically receive from the network data communication device: user information identifying the user, the user information including a user name; security information that the user has entered into the network data communication device, the security information including at least two separate fields of information, wherein one of the fields of information is a password and another of the fields of information is an employee ID; and device information identifying the network data communication device; and a data processing system configured to electronically authenticate the network data communication device if and only if: the user information and the security information match user information and related security information in a user-security information database, the user-security information database including a user-password database containing a password for each of several user names and a user-employee ID database containing an employee ID for each of several user names; the device information matches device information in a device information database; and the network account of the user is indicated as being active in a network account database.