Patent ID: 8386782

Claim:
A method, comprising: on a device that is one of three or more devices of a communication group, performing the following: sharing, with the other devices of the three or more devices, data which the three or more devices want to verify is the same in all of the three or more devices; selecting a random number; computing, using a first function, a value based on the random number; sending the computed value to other devices; waiting until computed values have been received from each of the other devices, each of the other devices selecting its respective random number and each computed value being computed by one of the other devices using its respective random number and using the first function and its respective random number to compute the computed value; sending the random number to the other devices; receiving respective random numbers from each of the other devices; checking, using the respective random number from each of the other devices and the first function, for each received computed value, whether the received computed value is correct; and in response to each received computed value being correct, calculating, using a second function, another value based on the random numbers from all of the three or more devices and one of the shared data or a unique representation of the shared data, the calculated other value being used for accepting or rejecting whether the shared data is verified as the same in all of the three or more devices.