Importance

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Abstract

Cryptographic methods and apparatus are disclosed that enable forming and issuing of secret-key certificates. Contrary to the well-known cryptographic technique of public-key certificates, where a public-key certificate is a digital signature of a certification authority on a public key, pairs consisting of a public key and a corresponding secret-key certificate can be generated by anyone. As a result, a public-key directory based on secret-key certificates cannot help anyone in attacking the signature scheme of the certification authority, and it does not reveal which of the listed public keys have been certified by the certification authority and which have not. Yet, if a party associated with a public key can perform cryptographic actions with the secret key corresponding to its public key, such as decrypting, digital signing, issuing a secret-key certificate, and identification, then the certificate must have been computed by the certification authority.

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First Claim