CHANGING STATES OF COMMUNICATION LINKS IN COMPUTER NETWORKS IN AN AUTHENTICATED MANNER

摘要

A protocol for closing all active communication links between one device (110.1) and one or more other devices in a group provides that the first device sets up the group by generating an input to a predefined function (e.g. one-way function) according to some random distribution, computing the output of the one-way function, and sharing the output value with all other devices in the group. Then to close all communication links, the first device broadcasts the stored input to all other devices in the group. The other devices may check that the one-way function applied to this input results in the shared output value, and if so, close the communication link.