Patent ID: 8266447

Claim:
A system for securely processing information by means of a signature and/or encryption principle, comprising: a mobile, passive first storage unit for retrievably storing first information, with an unambiguous identification number IDS i wherein the index i specifies the number of first storage units belonging to the system; a processing device which is adapted for interacting with the first storage unit in order to process information, comprising: i) an unambiguous identification number IDV n , wherein the index n specifies the number of processing devices belonging to the system; ii) a manipulation-protected second storage unit, which cannot be accessed from the outside, for securely storing second information corresponding to the first information; iii) a computing unit for processing information, wherein the computing unit is constructed to be integrated in the second storage unit in a manner of a smart card or chip card; and iv) an information transmission unit for transmitting information from the first and/or the second storage unit to the computing unit and for transmitting information between the processing device and connected peripheral; wherein at least one of the storage units is constructed as an optical storage unit and at least one of the information transmission units is constructed as an optical information transmission unit in order to transmit information via at least one beam path, and wherein for a group of at least two processing devices and/or components of the connected peripheral, there is a group certificate <G> with the corresponding secret key g which is stored in the processing device or a component belonging to the group, and for each of the processing devices and/or components of the connected peripheral, belonging to the group, there is a certificate <IDV n , A n > g which is signed with the secret key g and is stored in each processing device and/or component belonging to the group, wherein A n represents attributes which can provide information about characteristics of the processing device and/or component, and in each of the processing devices and/or component of the connected peripheral belonging to the group, a list of revoked certificates is stored, the list being signed with a global certificate <TC> and this signature also being stored in each processing device and/or component belonging to the group, and wherein the processing device and the peripheral are configured such that before exchanging sensitive information, the processing device and peripheral will first: exchange their certificates <IDV n , A n > g , and verify said certificates by application of the group certificate <G>, and check the validity of other certificates in each case by means of said list of revoked certificates.