Authenticating Users

You authenticate a user to learn his or her identity. The identity information might be used to make sure a person should have access to the Web Service. You may also use the identity to track the user's activities. When it comes to authenticating your users, you have several options:

  • Application level authentication— Users identify themselves via credentials supplied in the SOAP message.

  • HTTP Basic authentication— The username and password are sent as clear text. This is not useful for secure applications, but it can be useful in combination with other identification techniques.

  • HTTP Digest authentication— This tool sends a hashed version of the basic authentication credentials so that only the server can decode them.

  • Client ...

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