Self-owned authentication and identity framework

An apparatus for authenticating a user, using a user computing device connected to a computer network, to access a computing resource managed by a system on the computer network, the apparatus comprising:

• a memory in which are stored modified forms of each of a set of user-defined credentials, wherein the set of user-defined credentials are of types that the user has previously defined and for which the user has previously established values, wherein the user-defined credential types include at least one credential type not predefined by the system;
• and
• a processor in or associated with the system and configured to access the memory and to perform the following in response to a request from the user computing device to access the computing resource:
• transmit information to the user computing device to cause the user computing device to present a user interface to prompt the user to input a value for each of the set of user-defined credentials, thereby forming a set of input values;
• receive from the user computing device a set of modified values, wherein each of the modified values is generated from and represents a corresponding one of the input values;
• validate the set of modified values by comparing them with corresponding modified forms of the user-defined credential values stored in the memory;
• and
• based on validating the set of modified values, provide an indication to the system that the user has either been authenticated or not been authenticated.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium on which are embedded instructions that, when executed by a runtime executable module on a computer, cause the module to authenticate a user, using a user computing device connected to a computer network, to access a computing resource managed by a system on the computer network, the instructions comprising instructions to, in response to a request from the user computing device to access the computing resource, cause the module to:

• transmit information to the user computing device to cause the user computing device to present a user interface to prompt the user to input a value for each of the set of user-defined credentials for which the user has previously defined a set of one or more types of user-defined credentials and established values for said user-defined credentials to use to authenticate the user to the system, wherein the set of one or more types of user-defined credentials includes at least one credential type not predefined by the system
• receive from the user computing device a set of modified values, wherein each of the modified values is generated from and represents a corresponding one of the input values;
• validate the set of modified values by comparing them with corresponding modified forms of user-defined credential values stored in a memory accessible to the module only;
• and
• based on validating the set of modified values, provide an indication to the system that the user has either been authenticated or not been authenticated, thereby permitting the system to determine whether to allow or deny the user to access the computing resource as an authenticated user.