SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DEFINING PROGRAMMABLE PROCESSING STEPS APPLIED WHEN PROTECTING THE DATA

• US 20080288771A1
• Filed: 05/16/2008
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verimatrix Incorporated (Verimatrix SA)
• Original Assignee: Verimatrix Incorporated (Verimatrix SA)
• Inventors: Mautner, Craig, Kulakowski, Robert T., Hutchins, Greg, Fahy, James B., Bronte, Jeffery
• Granted Patent: US 8,478,980 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/150
• 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 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/24 Key scheduling, i.e. generating round keys or sub-keys for block encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/603 Digital right managament [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/088 Usage controlling of secret information, e.g. techniques for restricting cryptographic keys to pre-authorized uses, different access levels, validity of crypto-period, different key- or password length, or different strong and weak cryptographic algorithms network architectures or network communication protocols for using time-dependent keys in a packet data network H04L63/068
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/16 the keys or algorithms being changed during operation

Abstract

Systems and methods for protecting data being sent between a client and a server include the capability of defining programmable processing steps that are applied by the server when protecting the data and the same steps are applied by the client when unprotecting the data. The programmable processing steps can be defined uniquely for each client, and the programmable processing steps are selected from a number of functions using sequencing data that defines the processing steps. The programmable processing steps allow for each client to process encrypted data in a different manner and the programmable processing steps are defined by what is called a digital rights management (DRM) Sequencing Key, and as such the system and method introduces a key-able DRM whereby each DRM message can be processed in a unique (or pseudo unique) manner.

Claims

1. A computerized encryption system comprising:

an input data interface module for receiving input data to be protected;

a plurality of encryption functions;

sequencer data that defines a sequence flow of how the encryption functions are executed; and

a sequencer instruction execution module that performs the sequencing of the execution of the encryption functions in the order according to the sequencer data.

2. A system according to claim 1 further comprising a sequencer data encryption module configured to encrypt the sequence data before it is transmitted to a client.

3. A system according to claim 1 further comprising a sequencer instruction encryption module which encrypts the sequencer instruction execution module.

4. A method of protecting data to be transmitted to a client comprising:

receiving input data to be protected;

generating sequencer data that describes the order in which selected protection functions will be applied to the input data;

executing the selected protection functions upon the input data according to the sequencer data to generate protected output data.

transmitting the protected output data to a client; and

transmitting the sequencer data to the client.

5. The method of claim 4 further wherein executing the selected protection functions upon the input data according to the sequencer data to generate protected output data comprises

a) using a first portion of the sequence data to identify a first function and performing that function on the input data;

b) using the next portion of the sequence data to identify a second function and performing that function on the data; and

c) repeating step b until all the processing has occurred.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein performing a function on the data can include modifying the sequence data.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein one or more of the functions is decomposed.

8. The method of claim 5 further comprising encrypting the sequencer data before it is transmitted to the client.

9. A computerized system for using encrypted data comprising:

an input data interface module to receive protected output data;

a plurality of decryption functions;

sequencer data that defines a sequence flow of how the decryption functions are executed; and

a sequencer instruction execution module for sequencing of the execution of the decryption functions in the order according to the sequencer data.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the plurality of decryption functions are decomposed.