Patent ID: 7318155

Claim:
A method for providing certificate status from a distributed computing environment, wherein the distributed computing environment comprises a set of Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responders, the method comprising: configuring the OCSP responders to dynamically determine and designate one of the OSCP responders in the set as a master OCSP responder responsible for managing the set of OCSP responders; dispersing from the master OCSP responder to each OCSP responder in the set of OCSP responders a copy of a public key certificate, wherein an asymmetric cryptographic public key is stored within the public key certificate; setting an expiration period of the public key certificate to be equal to an earliest expiration date among public key certificates associated with OCSP responders in the set of OCSP responders; configuring each OCSP responder in the set of OCSP responders so that each OCSP responder can generate a group digital signature; receiving from an OCSP client an OCSP request message at an OCSP responder in the set of OCSP responders; and returning to the OCSP client an OCSP response message comprising the group digital signature.