APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR VERIFYING IDENTITY OF A USER TO OPERATE SECURE APPLICATION ON THE INTERNET

摘要

A verifier (284) is provided for assessing unique characteristics exhibited by a user over a period of time. The unique characteristics are captured through various interactions with the user over time using a habit capture system which models the user's characteristics when the user uses a keyboard (132), a mouse (140) or a digitizer (126). When the system is first used, the user is prompted to answer various questions, some of which inquire into personal information. As the user responds, information representative of the user is captured, including keyboard typing patterns (342), mouse click patterns (346), misspelling patterns (350). Data captured by the habit capture system is provided to a verifier (284) which samples the user's characteristics and compares the characteristics of the current user with that stored in the database server (76, 80, 84).