Patent ID: 8103869

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a node configured for use in a communication network with a distributed architecture, wherein the node comprises at least one processor, the node further comprising: a key encryption functionality; a transceiving functionality for transmitting and receiving packets; a privilege level introduction functionality configured to introduce a first privilege level into packets to be transmitted; and a comparison functionality configured to compare a second privilege level of said received packets with a third privilege level assigned to any node from which said packets are received, wherein said received packets are dropped when said received packets violate the third privilege level of said any node to spread trust in the communication network using the distributed architecture, wherein trustable nodes are used and defined by having key encryption capabilities and untrustable nodes are used and defined by not having key encryption capabilities; and an assigning trust functionality configured to assign trust corresponding to a fourth privilege level to other nodes by using a trusted boot mechanism for said communication network, wherein said assigning of the trust comprises assigning the trust to other nodes by a key encryption based authentication process.