Nomadic user

A nomadic user is a computer user who can freely move in an environment without carrying a computing device. This user is not called a 'mobile user' because he does not carry any computing device; a nomadic user uses the devices present in the environment.
Evolution of Computing
This evolution of computing paradigms is reflected in the way computers are used. Depending on how
a person fulfills his computing needs, one identify certain phases of user evolution. In the first phase, a user has to access computers that are placed in a single physical location whenever he has a problem that requires computational resources. Thus the freedom of mobility for a user is severely constrained by physical or virtual access to the computing resource. In the second evolution phase, which is mobile computing, users are enabled to move freely, because they can carry their computation resources with them . More recently, a third phase of evolution has emerged, as people start embedding computing devices into artifacts of the surrounding environment. Normally technology experts termed this as nomadic use of computing, because it is characterized by the fact that there is no inherent need to carry a computing device nor is there any requirement to access a single computer in a central location, because computers have become part of the environment, thus a nomadic user can freely move and compute where ever and when ever required .
Usability Issues
The evolution towards nomadic use of computing is not accompanied by use of appropriate security mechanism. A password based authentication mechanism, when used by nomadic users, leads to many security vulnerabilities, causing a considerable drop in level of effective security. It turn out that most of these security vulnerabilities are due to usability constraints present in classic authentication mechanisms. As nomadic users are very conscious about usability issues, so they try to circumvent security checks. Thus usability should be considered as an integral part of overall design of an authentication mechanism .
Properties
# A nomadic user only interacts with a nomadic computing infrastructure. This is a necessary condition meaning that a person can be nomadic at one instant in time and may not be nomadic at another. For example, it is very common that people carry a mobile phone. If such a person is in a nomadic environment, he is a nomadic user while using devices embedded in the environment, but belongs to the class of mobile users while talking to a friend on a mobile.
# A nomadic user only uses potentially shareable computing devices. This is also a necessary condition. The device used by a nomadic user is not owned or physically in the possession of a nomadic user and thus the definition only includes those devices present in an infrastructure which can be shared with other nomadic users.
# A nomadic user works in his unique session (desktop in the classic sense) on a device present in a nomadic environment. Again, this is a necessary condition as a nomadic environment may be conceived in which users do not have their unique sessions.
# A nomadic user is capable of delegating his duties to another person. This is sufficient but not a compulsory condition, as working conditions of a nomadic user may not require such a delegation. However, if someone is delegating his own session to another person for a period of time, he is certainly sharing his device and belongs to the class of nomadic users.
# A nomadic user is conscious of at least one usability case that is part of a security mechanism. This is a necessary property and it distinguishes a nomadic user from an ideal ubiquitous user. On the contrary, if some authorized user is not conscious about usability at all, there is a very low probability that he would try to bypass the security mechanism.

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