Patent ID: 8352738

Claim:
A method of establishing an account for a user, comprising: communicating a shared secret key between a server and the user using an out-of-band communication channel; establishing a connection between a first computationally-enabled hardware device and the server; sending an account creation message from the server to the first computationally-enabled hardware device, said account creation message being generated using the shared secret key and including information identifying the server; forwarding information in the account creation message from the first computationally-enabled hardware device to a second computationally-enabled hardware device, wherein said second computationally-enabled hardware device: prompts the user to confirm that an account is to be created, creates a public/private key pair, associates the public/private key pair with the information identifying the server, creates a bookmark of the server's URL, and sends a reply message to the first computationally-enabled hardware device, said reply message including the public key; forwarding information in the reply message from the first computationally-enabled hardware device to the server; and the server associating the public key in the reply message with the user's account.