Patent ID: 8782397

Claim:
A method for verifying a signature of a signed message, said method comprising: receiving, by a recipient, the signed message from a sender, wherein the signed message comprises a compact attribute comprising a plurality of content types, the content types appearing in a predefined order within the compact attribute, the content types being collectively identified by a single object identifier associated with the compact attribute, the compact attribute comprising a processing flag and a security assertion, wherein the processing flag comprises rules to process the security assertion, and wherein the security assertion is made by an authority trusted by both the sender and the recipient; recovering the content types of the compact attribute comprising the processing flag and the security assertion, by parsing the signed message from said receiving, wherein said parsing comprises utilizing the predefined order of the content types within the compact attribute; and validating whether the signature of the signed message is valid based on the processing flag and the security assertion, wherein said validating comprises determining, via use of the rules, either that a key used in signing the security assertion identifies, or that the key does not identify, the authority trusted by both the sender and the recipient as a result of examining the key used in signing the security assertion.