An Enhanced Authentication Protocol (SAS) for Multi-server Architecture Integrating Mind Mapping based on Hashing Algorithm to Mitigate Digital Literacy threats in Higher Education: A Hybrid AI Assisted PBL

Abstract

The proliferation of distributed systems, cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) has made the need for strong authentication mechanisms in multi-server systems all the more important. It is a very simple and inexpensive method of authentication; however, it is easily attacked with replay attacks, impersonation attacks, and offline password guessing attacks. Moreover, most of these schemes allow only partial anonymity to the users and use verification tables or complex cryptographic procedures to improve security but require a lot of computing power. Due to the rapid proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in higher education has created new opportunities and challenges for both learners and educators. This paper presents a comprehensive synthesis of four contemporary empirical studies examining the intersection of AI, Project-Based Learning (PBL/PjBL), mind mapping, digital literacy, and collaborative skills development. Drawing on co-design methodologies, inclusive education frameworks, and experimental research designs, the paper critically analyses how students interact with AI in project contexts, how AI-assisted mind mapping enhances creative thinking and digital competencies, and how collaboration skills develop when AI tools are integrated into structured learning environments. Findings indicate that AI-enhanced PBL consistently improves multiple learner outcomes, and that students with neurodevelopmental disorders demonstrate disproportionately strong gains. Implications for curriculum design, assessment, and future research are discussed.  These restrictions shed light on the need for a lightweight, secure and scalable authentication solution. This research aims to design an authentication scheme that is simple and secure for multi-server systems, using one-way hash functions. The architecture of the protocol is based on multiple entities: Users, a registration center, and multiple service servers, through which a user can access a variety of services without having to register again. The protocol uses dynamic identity (DID) generation and random nonces, which ensures privacy and protects users from being traced across sessions. In addition, there is no need to use a verification table, which means that the risk of leakage of such credentials and the attacks by servers are greatly reduced. The proposed protocol offers user/server mutual authentication, secure key establishment and repel any replay attack by the nonces based communication. It also provides forward secrecy, creating unique session keys for each session of communication. The protocol is resource-friendly, as its computation and communication are both very light and suitable for resource-limited systems like the Internet of Things, mobile systems, cloud-based applications and the like. The simulations show that the proposed protocol is efficient in terms of computation and secure with high level of security. It solved the most important problems of the current multiple server authentication systems and established a practical, scalable and efficient solution for the current distributed computing environment.