Alcatel Communications, Inc.

Force10 Networks, Inc.

Nortel Networks Corporation

Viasat, Inc.

Bruce D Miller

Pierre A Humblet

Jerry D Hutchison

Peter B Beaulieu

Michael W Fortuna

Raj Shanmugaraj

Steven Sherry

Mark Steven Sanders

William Abraham

Michael Yip

Townsend Jackson Smith, Iii

Vihar Ramnath Rai

Benjamin M Collins

Larnie Rabinowitz

Roland T Provencher

Douglass E Walker

A non-transitory computer-readable medium for sharing protected content, comprising instruction stored thereon. When executed on a processor, the instruction performs steps of deriving a shared secret, processing the shared secret using a secure hash algorithm 256 cryptographic hash to produce a primary encryption key, and encrypting a secondary encryption key using the primary encryption key. When the shared secret is derived between a private key and a public key of a first user, encrypting the protected content using the secondary encryption key, and transmitting the encrypted protected content to a server to be accessed by the second user. When the shared secret is derived between the private key of the first user and a public key of a second user, transmitting the secondary encryption key to the second user. The second user uses the secondary encryption key to decrypt the encrypted protected content on the server.

Accelerated encryption and decryption of files with shared secret and method therefor

A trusted relationship service includes a certificate authentication server and a secure file host. The certificate authentication server operates to receive requests from a supplier and a customer to register with the service, verifies the identities of the supplier and the customer and sends digital certificates to both the supplier and the customer. The supplier can send information to the trusted relationship service where it is posted in a secure file host. The supplier can solicit the customer to visit the trusted relationship service web site to view the supplier information stored there, whereupon the customer can use their digital certificate to access the trusted relationship service site and is granted permission by the site to view the supplier information.

Method and apparatus for establishing a trusted and secure relationship between two parties connected to a network

A communications network gateway receives a stream of information formatted to be compatible with a first sub-network and it receives a stream of information formatted to be compatible with a second sub-network. The frames in the second stream are extracted and modified to be compatible with the transmission format of the first sub-network. The two streams of information are then aggregated for transmission over a logical network link in a manner that optimizes the bandwidth utilization of the overall communications network.

Method and apparatus for the efficient use of available communications network bandwidth

A system and method for fast and reliable failure notification and accelerated switchover for path protection in a communications network having several overlapping areas of nodes interconnected by communications links is described. Upon a failure event involving one of the communications links, a failure message is broadcast identifying the failed link, the broadcast being confined within the areas which include the failed link. A reliable transmission protocol is provided wherein at one or more of the nodes, a LAPD protocol unnumbered information frame containing the failure message is sent to connected nodes. The failure message is resent in another unnumbered information frame after a time interval unless an unnumbered acknowledgment frame containing or referencing the failure message is received from the connected node. A method of path protection includes establishing plural working paths through the nodes. For each working path, an associated protection path is precalculated. A priority is assigned to each working path and associated protection path. A protection path is precalculated for each area through which a particular working path traverses. Upon a failure event, working paths that include the failed link are switched to their respective protection paths. Higher priority protection paths can preempt lower priority paths that share at least one link. At each node, linked lists for protection path activation, working path deactivation and path preemption are implemented upon a failure event.

Method and system for path protection in a communications network

A communication system includes plural nodes interconnected with an optical transmission medium capable of carrying plural bands of optical channels. A device at each node is coupled to the medium for dropping one or more bands, adding one or more bands, and passively transmitting other bands such that a pair of nodes can communicate directly using a band common to the respective bands. One band of the bands associated with each of a first set of nodes overlaps with one band of the bands associated with each of a second set of nodes. Multiple overlapping bands provide a high level of wavelength termination diversity. An optical management bus system and method connects plural hybrid optical/electrical cables between transmission equipment and optical modules which connect to network fibers to provide a set of electrical connections that can be used to determine optical interconnections in an optical shelf configuration. A particular optical module can be identified as the root of an optical branching tree at a node and thereby the unique termination point of a network fiber such that a physical fiber topology can be associated with the logical fiber topology.

Communication system and method with optical management bus

Communication system and method with optical banding

An apparatus comprising system memory and a cache memory maintain system coherency for data stored in a subset of memory elements utilizing software coherency control, while system coherency for all remaining memory elements is maintained utilizing hardware coherency control.

Method and apparatus for increasing data rates in a data network while maintaining system coherency

A mechanism for providing point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections in an ATM network converts VPI/VCI information at an ingress ATM device on incoming cells from a source endpoint to internal VP/VCI information that is used to switch the cells through an ATM network to an egress ATM device. At the egress ATM device, the internal VPI/VCI information is converted back to the source VPI/VCI information for transmission of cells to the destination endpoint. In such a manner, an ATM switch network is able to provide point-to-point connections without requiring individual configuration of VPI/VCI information at the ingress and egress ATM devices.

Method and apparatus for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections in an ATM network

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North Reading, MA, United States of America

Bruce D Miller