International Business Machines Corporation

Mark Fisk

Robert B Carroll

Hamid Bacha

Robert Burns

Hatem Ghafir

Hiroshi Maruyama

Khalid A Asad

Dieter Poetzschke

Lolo Lasida

Larry An

Roger Reider

Paresh Patel

Ku Lee

Robert Briggs

Drew Kittel

Srinivasa Kasturi

Raymond Good

Hirosi Maruyama

Amit Pamecha

Techniques for use in establishing a secure exchange of information between an end user and a server in a distributed network environment are provided in accordance with a context manager. The context manager is manageable within a vault process and maintains state information between successive user browser sessions with multiple application domains containing various applications. The context manager accesses data stored on a global level that spans applications and is available to multiple vault applications in different domains. The context manager also accesses data stored on an application level and common to a given application domain for a given sequence of operations within the vault application. The context manager accesses data stored on an instance level for a given sequence of operations within a given application domain. Finally, the context manager opens the global level data, application level data, and instance level data for non-null values where a scoping level is not identified when performing a retrieval operation.

Vault controller context manager and methods of operation for securely maintaining state information between successive browser connections in an electronic business system

A vault controller manages resources in a secure environment or vault dedicated to an authorized user(s) for conducting electronic business in a distributed information system, e.g., the Internet. The controller includes a web server and a supervisor in a shared object library which runs as part of an HTTP daemon. The supervisor runs as a multi-threaded process and includes multiple service supervisor (SS) threads; a communication supervisor (CS) thread; a request supervisor (RS) thread; state and data tables and a vault daemon to support launching secure processes mapped to users through digital certificates included in user requests to the controller.

Vault controller supervisor and method of operation for managing multiple independent vault processes and browser sessions for users in an electronic business system

A vault controller manages resources in a secure environment or vault dedicated to an authorized user(s) for conducting electronic business in a distributed information system. The controller includes a web server and a supervisor in a shared object library, which runs as part of an HTTP daemon. The supervisor runs as a multi-threaded process with state and data tables and a vault daemon to support launching secure processes mapped to users through digital certificates. The vault daemon generates a password for a user request based on the user ID. The vault daemon launches a vault process (VP) running in a vault mapped to the user ID. After launching, the VP returns a message to the supervisor including a token identifying the thread. The supervisor sends the user request through a socket to the secure VP mapped to the user ID. The VP receives the request and launches a VP thread to handle the request. The VP thread writes the process data back through the socket to the supervisor thread for return to the user.

A secure-end-to-end communication system for electronic business system and method of operation, e.g., the Internet, includes a web server&mdash;vault controller having personal storage vaults in the controller for users, registration and certification authorities. Each personal vault runs programs on the controller under a unique UNIX user ID. Data storage is provided by the controller wherein the storage is owned by the same user ID assigned to the vault. A registration authority running as a software application in the controller processes requests to issue, renew and revoke digital certificates issued by a certification authority using two pairs of public-private keys. The registration authority interacts with the vault controller to decide whether an applicant qualifies to receive a digital certificate. The certification authority running as software application in the controller includes a certificate management system that provides services such as issuing, revoking, suspending, resuming, and renewing a user's right to digital certificates.

Secure server using public key registration and methods of operation

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North Potomac, MD, United States of America

Mark Fisk