An ID is being calculated in a manner distributed among devices of the user's personal area network (PAN). The devices communicate in a wireless manner. A server runs a simulation of the PAN. If the server and the PAN calculate matching results, it is assumed that the user's ID is correct for purposes of conditional access. The distribution of the calculation of the ID among the user's PAN devices and its, for practical purposes, stochastic nature render the system very hard to hack.