Abstract: An authorization system using authorizing devices, such as smart cards. The authorizing devices of the present invention are used to authorize transactions on a computer system. The present invention is used to provide security against authorizing multiple transactions that are in a queue, the present invention comprises an authorizing device that only allows the authorization of only one transaction at a time. The authorization of only one transaction is accomplished by software which set an indicator in the volatile memory of the processing module on the authorizing device. The indicator indicates whether a transaction has been authorized or not. If the indicator indicates that one transaction has been authorized, then no further transactions can be authorized. A processing module in the authorizing device operates software which instructs the processing module to set an indicator once a transaction has been authorized.

Abstract: A system that provides users of both fixed and wireless Internet devices, a method of entering numbers instead of the text characters of Internet Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and other Internet identifiers to access Internet resources and functions, such as Web sites and digital business cards. When the user enters a WebNum, the digits of the WebNum are processed by the WebNum system and the WebNum is mapped back to a URL or a file containing the content of a digital business card. The content is specially formatted for display on a wireless device. For a WebNum mapping to a digital business card, a WebNum application server retrieves the content and returns it to the device for displaying.

Abstract: A system that provides users of both fixed and wireless Internet devices, a method of entering numbers instead of the text characters of Internet Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and other Internet identifiers to access Internet resources and functions, such as Web sites, e-mail services, individual documents or files, location services, etc. When the user enters a WebNum, the digits of the WebNum are sent to a database on a system that is accessible over the Internet. The database maps the WebNum back to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which contains a hostname in the Internet domain name structure. This would subsequently be resolved through the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) to an IP address to identify the IP address of the Web site. The cell phone provider or WID network provider would then retrieve the home page of the Web site over the Internet, to return content to the cell phone or WID display.

Abstract: A public key management infrastructure (104) is shared by at least two users (102). A method (300) for managing risk arising from a user's use of the shared public key management infrastructure (104) includes the following steps. The user (102) is associated (301) with a digital certificate (200) which is issued and digitally signed by a certification authority (CA). The digital certificate (200) represents that the user (102) is bound to a public key (210) corresponding to a private key held by the user (102); the public key (210) and the private key form a key pair for use in public-key cryptography. The digital certificate (200) further includes an access label (216), which may identify the domain (105) within the public key management infrastructure (104) which the user (102) is authorized to access and/or the privileges which the user (102) is authorized to exercise. The user's identity and the validity of the digital certificate (200) are established (303,305).