rast to systems that use a third party to control user information, Bell Labs' approach puts the user in control of per- sonal information. Furthermore, Factotum and Secure Store are open plat- forms that can authenticate users with any Web site without requiring site operators to adopt any single sign-on standard. Secure Store acts as a repository for an individual's personal information, whereas Factotum serves as an agent to handle authentication on the user's behalf in a quick, secure fashion. The approach tackles the problem of how to conveniently hold and use a diverse collection of personal information, such as usernames, passwords, and client certificates, for authenticating users to merchants or other services. Factotum and Secure Store are inherently more secure because they give users control over their information, allow personal information to be stored on the network, not on a device, and use the latest protocols, says Al Aho, pro- fessor of computer science at Columbia University and the former Bell Labs vice president of computing sciences research. "Additionally, it's incredibly convenient because these applications eliminate the need for users to type the same information over and over, or to remember multiple passwords for each service they wish to access." Although Factotum and Secure Store were both written for the Plan 9 oper- ating system, an open-source relative of Unix developed at Bell Labs, they can be ported to other operating systems, including Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Unix. "This technology has the potential to serve as the foundation for a new generation of more secure, easier-to-use authentication systems," says Eric Grosse, director of Bell Labs' networked computing research. "After using and improving Factotum and Secure Store in our own network and research lab, we are confident that they are ready for wider implementation." To set up the Factotum and Secure Store services, a user first enters all of his or her various usernames and passwords into Secure Store. The network's