Abstract: The present invention relates to a certificate handling method and system for ensuring secure identification of multiple electronic devices and especially to a method and a system for autonomously creating, transferring, verifying, issuing and status checking (e.g. revocation status) of digital certificates for electronic communication. The present invention provides a certificate handling method, wherein the electronic devices can mutually authenticate each others identity without the use of a certificate authority and the identities of a first electronic device and a second electronic device are mutually authenticated using a personal area network to establish a trust relationship between the first electronic device and the second electronic device.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for seeding cryptographic random number generators. For seeding a cryptographic random number generator, an image is used. Pixels of the inputted image are selected, each of which is provided with associated position and color information. That position and color information associated with the selected pixels is used to compute a predetermined number of bits which are then used for seeding the random number generator. The user can input the image by a camera, a scanner or a repository.