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Abstract

A method and apparatus for generating authenticated Diffie-Hellman keys. Each user first generates an authenticated first shared secret value from a first nonshared persistent secret value generated by that user and an authenticated first transformed value received from the other user over a trusted communications channel. Each user then dynamically generates a second shared secret value from a second nonshared secret value dynamically generated by that user and a dynamically generated second transformed value received from the other user. Each user thereafter generates one or more keys by concatenating the first and second shared secret values together with a count to form a concatenated value and passing the concatenated value through a one-way hash function to generate a hash value from which the keys are extracted. Since only the legitimate users possess the information necessary to construct the first shared secret value, a spoofer interacting with a user to generate a second shared secret value cannot generate the same key. Incrementing the count for successive hashes allows a multiplicity of keys to be generated from a given pair of shared secret values.

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First Claim