Authentication in network centric systems

The vision of a network centric defence involves a set of demands for the C2 system. In this report six demands are identified. Three classes of methods for authentication - ticket, certificate and identity based respectively - are discussed in relation to the list of demands. With authentication we mean verification of claimed identity by digital means. We don´t discuss analog methods, e. g. biometric authentication. We present a table of assessments for the three classes of authentication related to the six demands. The three classes meet the demands in different ways. Our conclusion is that methods based on tickets and certificates are most general, while identity based methods don´t scale well to large systems.