etc in other instances well known implementations or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of various embodiments of the invention fig1 depicts an example of a system 100 for validating a client at a server in the example of fig1 the system 100 includes a server 102 a network 104 and a client 106 the server 102 includes a certificate request module 110 a certificate verification module 112 a cert database 114 a pseudo random number prn generator 116 and an interface 118 the client 106 includes a certificate generation module 120 non volatile nv memory 122 and an interface 124 the server 102 may be any applicable known or convenient computer the network 104 may be any communications network including by way of example but not limitation the internet the client 106 may be any applicable known or convenient computer that has secure storage the nv memory 122 may include a secure key store and in an embodiment the nv memory 122 is on chip memory in the example of fig1 in operation a protocol for registration or activation is initiated by the server 102 the client 106 may in an alternative initiate the registration or activation in an embodiment the protocol serves to register a device identity and certificate into the cert database 114 to do so the prn generator 116 generates a prn r and the certificate request.