Patent ID: 8245045

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for automatically generating a digital signature for a message M T , the message M T being representable in a hierarchical tree structure, the method comprising; selecting, from the message M T , a sub-message M to be signed, the sub-message M comprising at least one element; generating a well-formed context C M t for the sub-message M, the well-formed context C M t defining a derivation path to the element in the message M T at a time t and marking the element [M] in the well-formed context C M t , the generating of the well-formed context being performed by a processor of a device; generating a message digest δ M from the sub-message M and a context digest δ C from the well-formed context C M t ; and generating a signature S by applying a secret key S A of a user A to the message digest δ M and to the context digest δ C .