Abstract: A system and method of automating the management of public and private key pairs of a sender and recipient of electronic messages over a network and for retrieving public keys of senders or recipients from secured servers, local key rings, PKI server, or Certificate Authority without requiring client-side software or user maintenance.

Abstract: This invention is directed to a distributed database system for storing and publishing public and private keys of an encryption system. Through the use of a distributed database network, keys can be stored, associated with member's accounts, published, retrieved and utilized automatically without the necessity of the individual member managing the public or private keys. The distributed eliminates the necessity of the public or private keys from being located at a single location allowed the flexibility for a multitude of user to manage public and private keys.

Abstract: This invention is directed to a distributed database system for storing and publishing public and private keys of an encryption system. Through the use of a distributed database network, keys can be stored, associated with member's accounts, published, retrieved and utilized automatically without the necessity of the individual member managing the public or private keys. The distributed eliminates the necessity of the public or private keys from being located at a single location allowed the flexibility for a multitude of user to manage public and private keys.