System and method for secure delivery of rich media

• US 20020013897A1
• Filed: 05/15/2001
• Published: 01/31/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Adam Nemitoff, Altay Murat, Brennan J. Mcternan
• Original Assignee: Adam Nemitoff, Altay Murat, Brennan J. Mcternan
• Inventors: Nemitoff, Adam, Murat, Altay, McTernan, Brennan J.
• Application Number:
  US09/858,018
• Publication Number:
  US 20020013897A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/153
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/04 for providing a confidential data exchange among entities communicating through data packet networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0442 wherein the sending and receiving network entities apply asymmetric encryption, i.e. different keys for encryption and decryption cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for public-key encryption H04L9/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/062 for key distribution, e.g. centrally by trusted party cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for key distribution involving a central third party H04L9/0819
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/164 Adaptation or special uses of UDP protocol
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/165 Combined use of TCP and UDP protocols; selection criteria therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/194 : Transmission of image signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 : for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2343 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for distribution or compliance with end-user requests or end-user device requirements video transcoding H04N19/40; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/234318 : by decomposing into objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 : involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs

Abstract

A system and method for the secure delivery of rich media resources across a computer network having a plurality of servers connectable to one or more clients. Client devices are configured to request and receive rich media resources from a show server and decryption keys from a security server. The show server receives a request for rich media resources from a client device and delivers them to the requesting client, preferably in an encrypted form. The security server responds to the request for decryption keys and transmits keys that are operative to decrypt the rich media resources received by the client device. Upon receipt of the decryption keys, the rich media resources are decrypted and played back on the client device using media player software. During the playback of the received rich media resources, heartbeat packets are generated indicating that the client is playing back the received rich media resources. Heartbeat packets are aggregated and analyzed across all clients connected to the network for receipt and playback of rich media resources, thereby establishing a mechanism that allows precise show viewership measurements to be made.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for receiving a securely distributed show comprising a plurality of rich media resources over a computerized network operative to connect a plurality of clients and servers, the method comprising:

retrieving the rich media resources in an encrypted format, each encrypted rich media resource identified by a unique resource id;

identifying the decryption keys corresponding to the unique resource ids of the encrypted rich media resources;

retrieving a session id and the identified decryption keys;

decrypting the encrypted rich media resources using the decryption keys; and

playing the show by presenting the retrieved decrypted rich media resources.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

generating heartbeat data packets at regular intervals while the show is playing, the heartbeat data packets used to determine how long said resource is played;

transmitting the heartbeat data packets identified by the session id to a security server for aggregation, the aggregation indexed by session id; and

transmitting the aggregated heartbeat data packets to a central server to generate payment information.

3. The method of claim 1, the method comprising downloading a media player to facilitate playback of the retrieved show, the media player identified by a unique player id.

4. The method of claim 3, the method comprising collecting and aggregating demographic information regarding an entity performing the downloading operation and associating it with the unique player id.

5. A computer implemented method for providing for the secure distribution of a show comprising a plurality of rich media resources over a computerized network operative to connect a plurality of clients and servers, the method comprising:

receiving each rich media resource in the show at a security server, each rich media resource identified by a unique resource id;

generating a plurality of encryption/decryption key pairs;

for at least some of the rich media resources in the show, encrypting each rich media resource using a different encryption key;

generating a plurality of records to associate each encrypted rich media resource with the appropriate decryption key;

transmitting the decryption keys and records to a central server; and

transmitting the decryption keys and records to other security servers on the network.

14. The method of claim 5, where encrypting at least some of the rich media resources comprises:

checking the unique resource id of the rich media resource to determine if the resource was previously encrypted; and

encrypting each rich media resource only if the resource was not previously encrypted.

15. The method of claim 14, the method comprising returning the address of an encrypted rich media resource where the step of checking the rich media resource id determines that the rich media resource was previously encrypted.

6. A computer implemented system for providing for the secure distribution of a show comprising a plurality of rich media resources over a computerized network operative to connect a plurality of clients and servers, the system comprising:

a security server to receive the rich media resources, each resource identified by a unique identifier, and handle key requests from client devices,

an encryption system to generate encryption/decryption key pairs, one pair for each resource, and to encrypt the rich media resources using a separate key for each resource;

a key manager to create records that associate each decryption key generated by the encryption system with the encrypted rich media resource that it is capable of decrypting; and

a show server to provide the media resources to security servers for encryption, to manage encrypted rich media resources, and to respond to client requests for rich media resources.

7. The system of claim 6, the system comprising a web server configured to serve media player software to a requesting client and further configured to collect and aggregate demographic data regarding all clients.

8. The system of claim 7, the web server comprising show server guides containing the address of show servers and the resources located thereon.

9. The system of claim 7, the system comprising a central server configured collect aggregated demographic data.

10. The system of claim 6, the system comprising:

a media player operative to retrieve a show comprising a plurality of rich media resources from the show server and issue requests to the security server for decryption keys corresponding to the unique ids of the rich media resources comprising the show.

11. The system of claim 10, the media player comprising functionality allowing it to generate heartbeat data packets for broadcast across a network.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the heartbeat data packets are aggregated at the security server across a plurality of media players.

13. The system of claim 12, the system comprising a central server configured to collect heartbeat data packets from security servers connected to the network to create usage statistics regarding media players.