Patent ID: 8301883

Claim:
A method for managing a conference between two or more parties in a communication system, the method comprising steps of: performing an identity based authenticated key exchange operation between a conference management element of the communication system and each of the two or more parties seeking to participate in the conference, wherein messages exchanged between the conference management element and the two or more parties are encrypted based on respective identities of recipients of the messages, and further wherein the conference management element receives from each party during the key authentication operation a random key component that is computed based on a random number selected by the party; sending from the conference management element to each party a set comprising the random key components computed by the parties; receiving at the conference management element from each party a random group key component, wherein the random group key component is computed by each party via a computation based on the random number used by the party during the key authentication operation and the random key components computed by a subset of others of the two or more parties seeking to participate in the conference; and sending from the conference management element to each party a set comprising the random group key components computed by the parties such that each party can compute the same group key for use in communicating with each other party through the conference management element.