Hierarchical open security information delegation and acquisition

Abstract

The invention provides a method and system for secure data transfer and dynamic definition of trustworthiness of various entities by multiple parties in a hierarchy tree or graph structure. The invention uses digital certificates. Each party in the business hierarchy can control and define various trust information including trustworthiness and delegation authority for the entities it deals with. The ability of a party to redefine or add trust information is controlled by the parties with which it has a relationship that are above it in the hierarchy. Trust vectors and delegation vectors are used to store this information. Each party can add trusted third parties to a security object without compromising the integrity of security objects already issued. A sequence of security objects including digital certificates can be modified without compromising the original digital certificates in those security objects.