Patent ID: 7127613

Claim:
A method comprising: a first peer sending a message to a second peer on a peer-to-peer network, wherein the message indicates that the first peer is requesting a session with the second peer; the first peer sending a first public key to the second peer; the second peer receiving the first message; the second peer receiving the first public key; the second peer determining if a session with the first peer is to be established in response to the message indicating the first peer is requesting a session with the second peer; if it is determined that a session with the first peer is to be established: the second peer generating a first session key from the first public key; the second peer sending a message including the first session key to the first peer indicating that the second peer accepts the request for the session; and the first peer receiving the message including the first session key; and the first peer and the second peer using the first session key to encrypt and decrypt data exchanged between the first peer and the second peer to provide secure exchange of said data between the first peer and the second peer on the peer-to-peer network.