Patent ID: 8732453

Claim:
An acknowledgement apparatus, comprising: an inlet interface for receiving a message from a first node; a first hash number calculator for hashing the message from the inlet interface; an outlet interface; a first one-way data link for unidirectional transfer from the inlet interface to the first hash number calculator; and a second one-way data link for unidirectional transfer from the first hash number calculator to the outlet interface; wherein the outlet interface is coupled to a second node and comprises: a second hash calculator for hashing a second message corresponding to the first message received from the second node; and a comparison engine having a first input coupled to the second one way link to receive the hashed message from the first hash number calculator, a second input coupled to the second hash calculator to receive the hashed second message and an output coupled to the second node, the comparison engine configured to compare the hashed message and the hashed second message and to forward the results of the comparison on the output.