Patent ID: 7221757

Claim:
A method for accelerating data encryption, comprising: exchanging between a first device and a second device via a communications network an encrypted private session key for a private-key encryption method using a public-key encryption method, wherein encryption acceleration data is computed on the first device using a public key for the public-key encryption method, wherein the encryption acceleration data and the public key are sent to and used on the second device to encrypt the private session key exchanged between the first device and second device, and wherein the encryption acceleration data reduces a number of calculations needed on the second device to encrypt the private session key; initializing the private-key encryption method on the first device and second device using the exchanged private session key, wherein the private-key encryption method is initialized on the second device using encryption initialization data for the private-key encryption method computed on the first device using the exchanged private session key and sent to the second device, and wherein the encryption initialization data reduces a number of calculations needed on the second device to initialize the private-key encryption method; and exchanging encrypted messages between the first device and the second device, thereby creating a cryptographically secure communications channel between the first device and the second device, wherein the encrypted messages are encrypted using the exchanged private session key and the private-key encryption method initialized with the encryption initialization data.