Abstract: A system and method for providing multiple virtual private networks (VPNs) from a computer system. Configuration information is maintained for connections, or tunnels, established between a local computer system and a number of remote computer systems. The configuration information includes information about the endpoints, or local-remote computer pairs, policies used to determine preferred access methods for connecting a given pair of computers, pre-shared keys, and digital certificates for providing keys to encrypt and decipher data. A local-remote pair is selected from an endpoints table. A policy corresponding to the selected local-remote pair is selected determining the access method(s) to be attempted in securely connecting the two computer systems. If an access method uses a digital certificate, the corresponding information is retrieved from a digital certificate table. The decision whether to check the digital certification has been revoked is stored in the endpoints table.

Abstract: A system and method for providing multiple virtual private networks from a computer system. The computer system communicates with a remote computer system in order to allow encrypted data traffic to flow between the respective systems. Two phases are used to authenticate the computer systems to one another. During the first phase, digital certificates or pre-shared keys are used to authenticate the computer systems. A phase 1 ID rules list contains authentication rules for local-remote computer pairs. During the second phase, a hash value is used to authenticate the computer systems and a security association payload is created. The remote system's IP address is used for connecting. The phase 1 ID rules list corresponds to one or more phase 2 ID rules lists. If the remote ID is not found in the phase 2 ID rules list, a default rule is used based upon the phase 1 ID rules list.

Abstract: Encryption is provided in wireless personal palm type computer devices for Internet transmitted documents despite the limited data processing and memory functions in such devices. The palm type device initially encrypts only a portion of a text document which is then wirelessly transmitted to the server computer which normally functions as the Web server, i.e. the server through which Web computer terminals are wired or connected into the Web. This Web server then further encrypts the received text document and then further transmits this further encrypted document to a terminal in said network. Preferably, the further encryption in the server involves two steps: decrypting the lower level encryption (necessitated by the limited CPU and memory resources in the palm device) to restore the text document at the server before the server may then re-encrypt the whole document using a higher level conventional 128 bit Web encryption protocols such as SSL.