David R Faucher Deceased19 Pleasant St, Allenstown, NH 03275

5455861, Oct 3, 1995

Aug 27, 1993

8/113155

David W. Faucher - Salem NH
Daniel N. Heer - Salem NH
Michael M. Kaplan - Rockport MA
David P. Maher - Windham NH

AT&T Corp. - Murray Hill NJ

H04L 900
H04M 119
H04N 144

380 9

A security node disposed in the telecommunications network connecting calling and called parties transforms information (which can be voice, data, facsimile, video and other types of calls or messages) encrypted in a first format to (a) encrypted information in a different format or to (b) non-encrypted information, and vice-versa. The node is accessible from any location connected to the network. By routing calls or messages originated by the calling party and destined for the called party via the security node, and providing appropriate control signals to the node, the information may be encrypted only over a portion of the transmission path between the parties, and clear over the remainder of the transmission path. Alternatively, the information may be encrypted in different portions of the path using different encryption algorithms. This arrangement enables the parties to obtain relatively secure communications even if only one party has a security device at the originating or terminating end, or if the parties have security devices using different handshaking protocols and encryption algorithms.