Glossary

Tech Terms | Abbreviations A–Z

O


Offline   Onion Routing   Online   OTA   OTP


Offline

No line, no connection, not connected. Condition when there is no connection to the Internet or to other devices.

Onion Routing

Onion routing is a technique for anonymous communication over a computer network. In an onion network, messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, analogous to layers of an onion. The encrypted data is transmitted through a series of network nodes called onion routers, each of which "peels" away a single layer, uncovering the data's next destination. When the final layer is decrypted, the message arrives at its destination. The sender remains anonymous because each intermediary knows only the location of the immediately preceding and following nodes.

This article is based on the article Onion_routing from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (short version). A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.

Online

The state when connected to the Internet or device.

OTA

(abbr.:) Over The Air. See also: FOTA.
Distribution of new firmware version via a radio connection (e.g. UMTS, WLAN) to the mobile phone. No computer is needed and no PC software has to be installed. Important: First make a backup copy of the phone memory, if necessary also back up the call logs! Only do this when the battery is fully charged, otherwise connect to the charger first! Any interruption in the transfer process can render the mobile phone unusable! This usually means total economic loss, not only for older devices!

One-time Password (OTP)

one-time password (OTP), also known as a one-time PINone-time authorization code (OTAC) or dynamic password, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device. OTPs avoid several shortcomings that are associated with traditional (static) password-based authentication; a number of implementations also incorporate two-factor authentication by ensuring that the one-time password requires access to something a person has (such as a small keyring fob device with the OTP calculator built into it, or a smartcard or specific cellphone) as well as something a person knows (such as a PIN).

OTP generation algorithms typically make use of pseudorandomness or randomness to generate a shared key or seed, and cryptographic hash functions, which can be used to derive a value but are hard to reverse and therefore difficult for an attacker to obtain the data that was used for the hash. This is necessary because otherwise, it would be easy to predict future OTPs by observing previous ones.

OTPs have been discussed as a possible replacement for, as well as an enhancer to, traditional passwords. On the downside, OTPs can be intercepted or rerouted, and hard tokens can get lost, damaged, or stolen. Many systems that use OTPs do not securely implement them, and attackers can still learn the password through phishing attacks to impersonate the authorized user.

Characteristics

The most important advantage addressed by OTPs is that, in contrast to static passwords, they are not vulnerable to replay attacks. This means that a potential intruder who manages to record an OTP that was already used to log into a service or to conduct a transaction will not be able to use it, since it will no longer be valid. A second major advantage is that a user who uses the same (or similar) password for multiple systems, is not made vulnerable on all of them, if the password for one of these is gained by an attacker. A number of OTP systems also aim to ensure that a session cannot easily be intercepted or impersonated without knowledge of unpredictable data created during the previous session, thus reducing the attack surface further.

There are also different ways to make the user aware of the next OTP to use. Some systems use special electronic security tokens that the user carries and that generate OTPs and show them using a small display. Other systems consist of software that runs on the user's mobile phone. Yet other systems generate OTPs on the server-side and send them to the user using an out-of-band channel such as SMS messaging. Finally, in some systems, OTPs are printed on paper that the user is required to carry.

In some mathematical algorithm schemes, it is possible for the user to provide the server with a static key for use as an encryption key, by only sending a one-time password.

This article is based on the article One-time_password from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and is licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (short version). A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.

Back to overview

Keyword list: Cellphone, Computer, FOTA, Firmware, Glossary, IT, Internet, Mobile Phone, Network, O, OTA, Offline, Online, PC, Phishing, Server, Service, Software, UMTS, User, WLAN, Who

Last edited: