Wave Rolls Out Password-Free Authentication

Wave Systems (WAVX) has developed a system for online authentication that relies on verifying a user's device ID.

The Wave Knowd service, now available for preview, allows websites to establish relationships with the devices its customers use most often for logins, Wave said Thursday. Knowd, meaning "known devices," is based on the idea that only previously authenticated devices should be allowed to access a protected network.

Once a device's identity is established, any website can use Knowd to create a relationship with the device and establish the user's identity. As a user accesses a site more often through the same device, the relationship between the site and Wave Knowd becomes stronger.

"The maturation of the web mandates a change in how we, and our computing devices, connect to the web," Steven Sprague, Wave chief executive, said in the news release. "The web needs the security and simplicity of this same model, where our computing devices themselves play an added role in authentication."

Wave is currently testing the system with several partners.

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