Patent ID: 7937752

Claim:
A method for securing communications between at least three devices, comprising: connecting a location-limited physical token channel to a first one of the at least three devices; storing at least pre-authentication information of the first device to the location-limited physical token channel; disconnecting the location-limited physical token channel from the first device; providing the location-limited physical token channel to another device of the at least three devices, the next device acting as a current device; connecting the location-limited physical token channel to the current device; storing at least pre-authentication information of the current device to the location-limited physical token channel; copying at least the pre-authentication information of the first device from the location-limited physical token channel to the current device; disconnecting the location-limited physical token channel from the current device; repeating, for each other device of the at least three devices as the current device, the providing, current device connecting, current device storing, current device copying and current device disconnecting steps; reconnecting the location-limited physical token channel to the first device; copying at least the pre-authentication information of each other device of the at least three devices from the location-limited physical token channel to the first device; and establishing, for each other device of the at least three devices, secure communications between the first device and that device based on at least the pre-authentication information of the first device and that device exchanged between the first device and that device using the location-limited physical token channel so as to establish a secure communication group including the at least three devices, wherein each device exchanges pre-authentication information only once except for the first device in order to establish the secure communications between the at least three devices, the location-limited physical token channel does not participate in the secure communications established between the at least three devices included in the secure communication group following the exchange of the pre-authentication information between the at least three devices via the location-limited physical token channel, and the location-limited physical token channel is a separate device from the at least three devices included in the secure communication group.