Patent ID: 8176328

Claim:
A method for authenticating an identity of an operator of an access point (AP) of a wireless local area network (WLAN) to a client seeking a connection with said AP, said method comprising: (a) registering the identity of the operator of the AP with a trusted certificate authority (CA), said registering including providing the CA with (i) identification information identifying the operator and (ii) a public key of the operator; (b) creating an authentication certificate including the operator's identification information and the operator's public key; (c) signing the certificate with a private key of the CA; (d) provisioning the AP with the certificate that was signed with the private key of the CA; (e) provisioning the client with a public key of the CA, said CA's public key being a corresponding counterpart to the CA's private key; (f) sending a certificate request from the client to the AP; (g) generating a signature with a private key of the operator, said operator's private key being a corresponding counterpart for the operator's public key; (h) returning a certificate reply from the AP to the client in response to the request, said reply including the certificate with which the AP was provisioned signed by the AP with the generated signature; (i) using the CA's public key with which the client was provisioned to obtain the operator's public key from the certificate received in the reply; and, (j) using the operator's public key obtained from the certificate received in the reply to verify the signature generated with the operator's private key and used by the AP to sign the certificate received in the reply.