Patent ID: 7653696

Claim:
A method of processing signed messages received at a computing device, the method comprising the steps of: a) receiving a message comprising a header identifying at least a sender address, at least one portion of signed data, a digital signature corresponding to each portion of signed data, and at least one message separator; b) determining whether a first message separator appears within a portion of signed data; c) if the first message separator does not appear within a portion of signed data, performing at least one pre-determined action for each digital signature in the message that appears after the first message separator; and d) if the first message separator appears within a portion of signed data, verifying that the sender address matches an address associated with a key used to generate a digital signature that appears after the first message separator and that corresponds to the portion of signed data within which the first message separator appears, and performing at least one pre-determined action for each other digital signature in the message that appears after the first message separator.