The paper explains that modern authentication depends on a strong trust anchor, similar to how a passport underpins identity in the physical world. Pages 3 to 5 outline the core requirements: secure issuance, exclusive user control, independence from the system being authenticated and resistance to forgery. It evaluates options including smartcards, FIDO tokens, biometrics and mobile phones. Smartcards best satisfy trust anchor criteria because they provide tamper resistant keys, secure PIN based control and system independence. The recommendation is to use physical tokens as the root of trust for issuing all other authentication factors.

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