Patent ID: 8386790

Claim:
A method of authenticating a digitally signed message, the method comprising the steps of: generating a chain of messages in a sender; generating a Winternitz pair of keys for each respective message; assigning a sequence number to each of the messages, each of the sequence numbers cooperatively identifying an order of Winternitz verifiers assigned to each of the messages; digitally signing a signature to a first message in the chain of messages using a digital signature algorithm private key; digitally signing signatures to each of the following messages in the chain of messages using both Winternitz private keys and digital signature algorithm private keys; the sender broadcasting the signed messages to a receiver via a wireless communication channel; authenticating the first signed broadcast message at the receiver by verifying the digital signature algorithm signature; and authenticating at least some of the following signed broadcast messages at the receiver by verifying only the Winternitz signature.