Preventing monitoring of data remotely sent from a metering accounting vault to digital printer

摘要

For preventing monitoring of postage indicia data which is sent from a postage metering vault to a remotely located digital printer (21) over a communication link (C11) between the meter vault and the digital printer (21), the meter (11) is provided with an encryption engine (37) for encrypting postage indicia data utilizing an encryption key. The digital printer (21) includes a decryption engine (53) for decrypting postage data received from said meter (11) utilizing the same encryption key and then prints a postage indicia pursuant to the decrypted postage indicia data. The postage meter (11) also includes a key manager (39) for generating a new encryption key pursuant to a token which is either randomly generated or generated pursuant to an algorithm by a similar encryption key manager located in the digital printer (21), which token is also used to generate the decryption key for the decryption engine (53). As a result, the encryption keys are the same. <IMAGE>