Method of securing and authenticating data using micro-certificates

1. A method of securing wireless communications, the method comprising:

(a) storing a recipient's micro-certificate at a vehicle, a call center, or a certificate authority;

(b) transmitting the micro-certificate from its place of storage, wherein the micro-certificate includes a public key having a length that is more than half the length of the micro-certificate;

(c) extracting the public key from the micro-certificate;

(d) encrypting a vehicle communication using the public key;

(e) transmitting the encrypted vehicle communication to the recipient; and

(f) decrypting the vehicle communication using a private key after receiving the vehicle communication.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein step (e) comprises transmitting the vehicle communication over a cellular voice channel.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the length of the public key is greater than three-fourths of the length of the micro-certificate.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the micro-certificate further comprises identification data that uniquely identifies the recipient.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the micro-certificate comprises no more than 44 bytes.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the micro-certificate comprises an elliptical-curve implicit certificate.

7. A method of securing wireless communications, the method comprising:

(a) storing a private key at a vehicle;

(b) requesting a micro-certificate at a vehicle telematics unit, wherein the micro-certificate includes a public key belonging to a recipient and an identifying data string;

(c) receiving the micro-certificate at the vehicle;

(d) extracting the public key belonging to the recipient from the micro-certificate;

(e) generating a first encryption of a vehicle communication, wherein the communication is encrypted using the extracted public key belonging to the recipient;

(f) performing a second encryption on the generated first encrypted vehicle communication using the private key stored at the vehicle; and

(g) transmitting the results of the second encryption between a vehicle and the recipient.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising the steps of:

storing a private key belonging to the recipient at the recipient;

requesting a second micro-certificate from a certifying agency or the vehicle that comprises a public key belonging to the vehicle;

performing a first decryption using the public key belonging to the vehicle to decrypt the results obtained from the second encryption; and

performing a second decryption using the private key belonging to the recipient.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the vehicle communication includes communications over the voice channel.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the vehicle communication includes short message service (SMS) messages or voice communications.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the identifying data string includes a station identification number that identifies a particular vehicle.

12. The method of claim 7 , wherein the micro-certificate comprises no more than 44 bytes.

13. The method of claim 7 , wherein the public key has a length that is greater than three-fourths of the length of the micro-certificate.

14. A method of securing wireless communications, the method comprising:

(a) storing a private key at a call center;

(b) requesting a micro-certificate at a call center, wherein the micro-certificate includes a public key belonging to a vehicle and comprises no more than 44 bytes;

(c) receiving the micro-certificate at the call center;

(d) extracting the public key belonging to the vehicle from the micro-certificate;

(e) performing a first encryption of a vehicle communication at the call center using the public key belonging to the vehicle;

(f) using the results of the first encryption to perform a second encryption at the call center using the private key stored at the call center; and

(g) after the second encryption, sending the vehicle communication to the vehicle.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising the steps of:

storing a private key belonging to the vehicle at the vehicle;

requesting a second micro-certificate from a certifying agency or the call center that comprises a public key belonging to the call center;

performing a first decryption using the public key belonging to the call center to decrypt the results obtained from the second encryption; and

performing a second decryption using the private key belonging to the vehicle.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the vehicle communication comprises communications over the voice channel.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the public key has a length that is more than half the length of the micro-certificate.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein the length of the public key is greater than three-fourths of the length of the micro-certificate.

19. The method of claim 14 , wherein the micro-certificate further comprises certificate expiration data and identification data that uniquely identifies the recipient.