Patent ID: 8312262

Claim:
A method operational on a third entity for managing signing privileges for a cryptographic signing service, comprising: registering a first entity with a second entity via a communication network for the cryptographic signing service, wherein the first entity is a vendor server that manages software distribution to one or more wireless client terminals having different hardware platforms; determining signing privileges for the first entity, the signing privileges indicating items for which cryptographic signatures may be obtained by the first entity, where each item is a specific combination of a software version and a hardware platform from among a plurality of possible combinations; receiving a request for a cryptographic signature for a specific item over the communication network from the first entity; and authorizing or denying the request based on whether the previously determined signing privileges for the first entity indicate that a cryptographic signature can be obtained by the first entity for the specific item, wherein authorizing the request causes a first cryptographic signature and a first cryptographic certificate for the specific item to be subsequently issued and sent over the communication network to the first entity by the second entity, where the first cryptographic certificate is used to validate the first cryptographic signature by the one or more wireless client terminals to ascertain authorization for the specific item distributed by the first entity over a wireless network.