Patent ID: 7797247

Claim:
A method of generating a postal indicium to evidence payment of postage in a postage metering system coupled to a network, the method comprising: determining in the postage metering system that a cryptographic operation associated with generating the postal indicium needs to be performed on a piece of data; identifying a device coupled to the network that can perform the cryptographic operation on the piece of data faster than the postage metering system can perform the cryptographic operation on the piece of data; sending a request through the network to the identified device to perform the cryptographic operation on the piece of data, the request including at least the piece of data; receiving a response including processed data in the postage metering system through the network from the device, the processed data including a result of the cryptographic operation being performed on the piece of data; accounting for the postal indicium in the postage metering system; and using the processed data to complete the postal indicium.