Self-encryption remote user anonymous authentication scheme using smart cards

Remote user authentication is essential in distributed network environment to protect unauthorized access of a networked system. However, most of those existing remote user authentication schemes have not provided the user identity anonymity, while user anonymity is particularly important in some practical applications. Therefore, based on self-encryption mechanism, a new remote user authentication scheme was proposed. The scheme not only has no need of maintaining a password table at the remote server, but also can protect the user's anonymity.