Apple Inc.

Leland A Wallace

David M O'Rourke

Christopher P Jalbert

A mechanism that allows a user to easily configure a rules engine to apply rules to decide which requests for access to a user's computer resources are to be granted and which are denied. A trusted token, such as a certificate of identity issued by a trusted third party authority that verifies identities of computer users, is included in a calling card object provided by the requesting user to the (server) computer that controls the resources desired by the requester. Additional conditions for access may be specified as desired by the user of the server computer.

Ad-hoc user account creation

A method for authenticating computers is disclosed. The method comprises issuing a credential from a first computer to a second computer. When the second computer authenticates to the first computer, the second computer transmits the credential and a first challenge to the first computer. The first computer determines whether the credential is valid, computes a first response to the first challenge, and generates a second challenge. The first computer transmits the first response and the second challenge to the second computer. The second computer determines whether the first response is valid and computes a second response to the second challenge. The second computer transmits the second response to the first computer in order to verify and authenticate the computers.

Server computer issued credential authentication

The invention provides a cryptographic method which includes receiving at a first entity a second public key M. At least one of a first session key Kand a first secret Smay be generated based on the second public key M. A first random nonce Nmay be generated which may be encrypted with at least one of the first session key Kand the first secret Sto obtain an encrypted random nonce. The encrypted random nonce may be transmitted from the first entity. In response to transmitting the encrypted random nonce, the first computer may receive a data signal containing a modification of the first random nonce N. If the modification of the first random nonce Nwas correctly performed, then at least one of (i) opening a communication link at the first computer, and (ii) generating a first initialization vector Iis performed.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Leland A Wallace