Abstract This thesis is the result of work done on extending the capabilities of SOCKS protocol. SOCKS is an application layer network security protocol deployed in firewalls, standardized in Request For Comments (RFC) 1928 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as SOCKS Version 5. There are two proposed extensions to the SOCKS protocol made and implemented in this thesis. The first extension is the addition of multicast capabilities to the SOCKS protocol. The current standard of the...

Abstract Web authentication systems use username and password mechanisms as the primary control for authorizing access to sensitive data and other resources of the Internet. While most Internet users view authentication systems as secure and usable, much research shows and many security experts believe that this view and the current authentication systems promote bad habits that result in loss of security, which poses real dangers to the Internet. Because site-centric authentication models result...