Other

British Telecommunications Corporation

Mark Stirland

Michael Victor Meyerstein

Keith Eric Nolde

Richard Paul Swale

Mack Hicks

David Anthony Roberts

Charles Dulin

Michael John Britnell

David Solo

Peter Maxwell Harding

Jonathan James Kingan

Larry Nepomuceno

Kevin Paul Bosworth

Robert Andrew Bissell

Jonathan Crispin Ranger

Richard Middleton Hicks

John Rabson

System and methods for facilitating electronic commerce by securely providing certificate-related and other services, including certificate validation and warranty services. The system services include a certificate status check service and a warranty service. The certificate status check service allows a relying customer to validate a subscribing customer's digital certificate. The warranty service allows the relying customer to receive a collateral-backed warranty that the subscribing customer's digital certificate is valid, and also confirms the ability of the subscribing customer to pay. All participants and a root entity are provided with a transaction coordinator for combining services and operations into a single transaction having the qualities of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability. The transaction coordinator provides a single consistent interface for certificate-status messages and requests, as well as messages and requests relating to other services.

Transaction coordinator for digital certificate validation and other services

An authentication system of a terminal on a public switched telephone network provides a security node associated with a local exchange and a network terminal. For one-way authentication, the terminal responds to a call initiation by sending a unique authentication code comprising a number and a secret key encrypted according to a first algorithm, the secret key being specific to the terminal. The security node constructs the expected authentication code from the number, using the first algorithm and a second key which is a function of a terminal identification number, and compares the expected code with the received code. In two-way authentication, the security node responds to the call initiation by sending a transaction number to the terminal encrypted according to a second algorithm. The terminal generates the authentication code as a function of the first algorithm, the secret key and the transaction number. The authentication code is sent back to the security node. An expected code is compared with the received one in the same way. In both cases, a match between expected and received authentication codes constitutes authentication of the terminal allowing the user access to the network.

User authentication in a communications network

Growing community of inventors

Ipswich, United Kingdom

Mark Stirland