Temporal proximity to verify physical proximity

• US 20030005324A1
• Filed: 06/28/2001
• Published: 01/02/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Epstein, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,352,582 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/554 involving event detection and direct action
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0492 by using a location-limited connection, e.g. near-field communication or limited proximity of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3271 using challenge-response

Abstract

A security system assesses the response time to requests for information to determine whether the responding system is in physical proximity to the requesting system. Generally, physical proximity corresponds to temporal proximity. If the response time indicates a substantial or abnormal lag between request and response, the system assumes that the lag is caused by the request and response having to travel a substantial or abnormal physical distance, or caused by the request being processed to generate a response, rather than being answered by an existing response in the physical possession of a user. If a substantial or abnormal lag is detected, the system is configured to limit subsequent access to protected material by the current user, and/or to notify security personnel of the abnormal response lag.

Claims

1. A security system comprising:

a verifier that is configured to determine an authorization to process protected material, based on one or more responses to one or more requests, and

a timer that is configured to measure response times associated with the one or more responses to the one or more requests;

wherein

the verifier is configured to determine the authorization based at least in part on an assessment of the response times.

2. The security system of claim 1, wherein

the verifier is configured to form the assessment based on at least one of:

an average of the response times,

a comparison of the response times to one or more threshold times, and

a statistical test based on the response times.

3. The security system of claim 1, wherein

the verifier is configured to provide the one or more requests, based on a random selection of one or more items to request.

4. The security system of claim 1, wherein

the response times are correlated to a physical proximity between a first source of the one or more requests and a second source of the one or more responses.

5. The security system of claim 1, wherein

the assessment of the response times forms an assessment of whether the one or more responses were communicated via a network connection.

6. The security system of claim 1, wherein

the assessment of the response times forms an assessment of whether the one or more responses were available a priori, or whether the one or more responses were a result of a time-consuming determination.

7. A processing system comprising:

a renderer that is configured to receive a plurality of data items corresponding to a data set, and to produce therefrom a rendering corresponding to a select data item,

a verifier, operably coupled to the renderer, that is configured to preclude the rendering corresponding to the select data item in dependence upon whether other data items of the plurality of data items are available to the renderer, and

a timer, operably coupled to the verifier and the renderer, that is configured to measure response times associated with responses to requests for the other data items from the renderer;

wherein

the verifier is configured to preclude the rendering based at least in part on an assessment of the response times.

8. The processing system of claim 7, wherein

the assessment of the response times corresponds to a determination of whether the other data items are located in physical proximity to the renderer.

9. The processing system of claim 7, wherein

the verifier is configured to form the assessment based on at least one of:

an average of the response times,

a comparison of the response times to one or more threshold times, and

a statistical test based on the response times.

10. The processing system of claim 7, wherein

the verifier is configured to randomly select the other data items.

11. A method for determining an authorization to process information based on a physical proximity between a receiver and a source of a plurality of data items, the method comprising:

determining a response time of the source of the plurality of data items, and

determining the authorization based on the response time.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein

determining the response time includes,

for each data item of a subset of the plurality of data items:

requesting the data item from the source at a first time,

receiving the data item at a receiver at a second time, and

accumulating a response time measure corresponding to a difference between the second time and the first time; and

determining the response time based on the response time measure.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein

the response time measure corresponds to at least one of:

an average of the differences between each second and first times,

a count based on a comparison of each difference to one or more threshold times, and

a statistical parameter based on the differences.