The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 16, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 06, 1998
Vipin Samar, Cupertino, CA (US);
Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a system for managing trusted certificates for authenticating communications for clients belonging to an enterprise. The system assembles a list of trusted certificates containing public keys for authenticating communications signed by associated private keys. This assembly process may include verifying the authenticity of trusted certificates in the list. The system then constructs a fingerprint for the list. The list is then communicated to a client through a first communication mechanism, and the fingerprint is communicated to the client through a second communication mechanism. Next, the client verifies that the fingerprint received through the second communication mechanism was constructed from the list of trusted certificates received through the first communication mechanism. This establishes a high degree of confidence that the list of trusted certificates is authentic. The client can then confidently use trusted certificates from the list to authenticate subsequent communications. Trusted certificates in the list are associated with certificate authorities that issue certificates for entities communicating across the network. Each of these trusted certificates includes a public key and an identity for a certificate authority. The enterprise administrator includes its own certificate along with other trusted certificates in the list. Once the user verifies the fingerprint and installs the list, subsequent updates to the list do not require further out-of-band verification of the fingerprint because the updated list can be verified using the public key of the enterprise administrator taken from the enterprise administrator's certificate.