Patent ID: 8458456

Claim:
A method for verifying the identity of a communication partner in real-time, wherein a caller (A) sends a message towards a callee (B), and wherein the caller (A) attaches a self-signed certificate to said message, the method comprising: storing, by one of more key-servers, certificates of users within a web-of-trust, wherein the caller (A) and the callee (B) are part of said web-of-trust, wherein the users upload the certificates which have been signed by other users to said one or more key-servers ( 3 ), wherein said one or more key-servers ( 3 ) include a specialized key-server ( 4 ) which verifies the signature in each said certificate it receives; employing trust relationships between users within said web-of-trust to compute a trust-chain between the caller (A) and the callee (B) based upon the certificate attached to said message and upon the callee's certificate; basing further processing of said message received by the callee (B) on the length of the derived trust-chain; and said specialized key-server ( 4 ) periodically computing a file which contains the trust relationships among all the certificates verified by said specialized key-server.