Patent ID: 6973569
Filing Date: 2005-12-06
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A certification authority for generating certificates in response to respective certification requests, the certification authority comprising: a general-purpose computer that is bootable; and a removable medium comprising a machine readable medium having encoded thereon: an operating system module configured to enable the computer to boot an operating system from the removable medium; and a certificate generation module configured to, after the computer has been booted, initiate a certificate generation session and control the computer to facilitate the generation of at least one certificate, as the certification authority, in response to an associated certification request, wherein the computer, upon booting from the removable medium, is dedicated as the certification authority during the certificate generation session and executes only operations related to the certificate generation session, and wherein remote control of the computer is prevented while the computer is dedicated as the certification authority.