System and method for dispensing postage based on telephonic or web milli-transactions

A system for electronic distribution of postage, comprising:

• at least one secure central computer for generating postage indicia in response to postage requests submitted by end user computers, the secure central computer including:
• a data processor;
• a database of information concerning user accounts of users authorized to request postal indicia from the secure central computer;
• a request validation procedure, executable by the data processor, for authenticating each received postage request with respect to the user account information in the database;
• a postal indicia creation procedure, executable by the data processor, for applying a secret encryption key to information in each authenticated postage request so as to generate a digital signature and for combining the information in each authenticated postage request with the corresponding generated digital signature so as to generate a digital postage indicium in accordance with a predefined postage indicium data format;
• and
• a communication procedure, executable by the data processor, for securely transmitting the generated digital postage indicium to the end user computer that sent a corresponding one of the postage requests;
• wherein
• the postal indicia creation procedure applies one of a plurality of secret encryption keys to each authenticated postage request in accordance with predefined kev assignment criteria;
• and
• the digital postage indicium generated by the postal indicia creation procedure includes a first portion, not encrypted with the secret encryption key, that includes information sufficient to enable a postal indicium validation procedure to identify the secret encryption key used to generate the digital signature of the digital postage indicium and to decrypt the digital signature of the digital postage indicium;
• each of the end user computers including:
• a data processor;
• a communication procedure for sending postage requests to one of the at least one secure central computers at which a user account has been established, and for receiving from the one secure central computer a corresponding digital postage indicium;
• and
• a postage indicium printing procedure for printing a postage indicium in accordance with the received digital postage indicium.

A method of generating and distributing digital postage indicia, comprising:

• at a secure computer,
• storing a database of information concerning user accounts of users authorized to request postal indicia from the secure computer;
• receiving postage requests from end user computers, each received postage request having request data defining a postage indicium to be created, including user account data;
• authenticating each received postage request with respect to the user account information in the database;
• applying a secret encryption key to information in each authenticated postage request so as to generate a digital postage indicium that is at least partially encrypted with the secret encryption key;
• and
• securely transmitting the generated digital postage indicium to the end user computer that sent a corresponding one of the postage requests;
• wherein
• the applying step applies one of a plurality of secret encryption keys, the secret encryption key applied to each particular authenticated postage request being determined in accordance with predefined key assignment criteria;
• the digital postage indicium generated by the applying step includes a first portion, not encrypted with the secret encryption key, that includes information sufficient to enable a postal indicium validation procedure to identify the secret encryption key used to generate the digital postage indicium and to decrypt a second, encrypted, portion of the digital postage indicium;
• and
• the generated digital postage indicium is formatted in a manner suitable for printing on a mail piece or mailing label by the end user computer in a predefined bar code format.