Method and Apparatus for Tamper Proof Camera Logs

• US 20100088522A1
• Filed: 10/02/2008
• Published: 04/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Chemishkian, Sergey, Barrus, John, Gormish, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,447,989 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/181
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/64 Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2101 Auditing as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3242 involving keyed hash functions, e.g. message authentication codes [MACs], CBC-MAC or HMAC

Abstract

A method and apparatus for maintaining a tamper proof device log are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises maintaining an embedded log in the device, the embedded log being a chain of log entries. In one embodiment, the method may also comprise publishing at least one log entry to a location external to the device.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

maintaining an embedded log in a device with at least one sensor, the embedded log being a chain of log entries; and

publishing at least one log entry to a location external to the device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding at least one new log entry to the embedded log when sensor data is captured by the device, wherein the at least one new log entry includes a hash of the sensor data and a hash of a recent portion of the embedded log.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one new log entry includes one additional log entry for each of the captured sensor data and metadata created by the device that is associated with the captured sensor data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the captured sensor data is one of a picture data, audio data, video data, temperature, global positioning data, chemical sensor data, or a new version of media data stored on the device edited from an existing media data.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

uploading the captured sensor data and the at least one new entry from the mirrored log to a computing device, wherein the computing device is operable to publish the at least one log entry to the location external to the device from the mirrored log.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the embedded log is maintained in a storage of the device inaccessible to the location external to the device, and the mirrored log is stored in storage of the device accessible to the location external to the device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one log entry is published to the location external to the device from a communications interface of the device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

publishing an existing log entry to the location external to the device periodically even when no new sensor data has been captured by the device since a last publication to the location external to the device.

9. A computer readable medium storing instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

maintaining an embedded log in a device with at least one sensor, the embedded log being a chain of log entries; and

publishing at least one log entry to a location external to the device.

10. A method, comprising:

obtaining a media data file known to have been captured by a media capture device;

obtaining purported media data files alleged to be captured by the media capture device;

extracting log entries from the known media data file; and

verifying authenticity of the purported media data files based on the extracted log entries.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein verifying authenticity further comprises:

calculating a cryptographic hash value of each purported media data file;

comparing cryptographic hash values with the extracted log entries; and

authenticating each purported media data file with a corresponding cryptographic hash value that matches an entry from the extracted log entries.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

extracting log entries from each purported media data file that was authenticated; and

verifying authenticity of remaining purported media data files, if any, based on the log entries extracted from each authenticated purported media data file.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the media data file is a known media data file extracted from the media capture device under a controlled process.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the known media data file includes independently verifiable data about the authenticity of the known media data file.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein verifying authenticity includes verification of one or more of an authenticity of media data, order of capture of the purported media data, a time when purported media data was captured, and a geospatial indication of where purported media data was captured.

16. A computer readable medium storing instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

obtaining a media data file known to have been captured by a media capture device;

obtaining purported media data files alleged to be captured by the media capture device;

extracting log entries from the known media data file; and

verifying authenticity of the purported media data files based on the extracted log entries.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

extracting log entries from each purported media data file that was authenticated; and

verifying authenticity of remaining purported media data files, if any, based on the log entries extracted from each authenticated purported media data file.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the media data file is a known media data file extracted from the media capture device under a controlled process.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the known media data file includes independently verifiable data about the authenticity of the known media data file.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the log entries are extracted from metadata fields of the known image.

21. A media capture device, comprising:

a memory of the media capture device to store an embedded log in the media capture device, the embedded log being a chain of log entries; and

a communications interface to publish at least one log entry to a location external to the media capture device.

22. The media capture device of claim 21, further comprising:

an image sensor to capture image data; and

a hash engine to add at least one new log entry to the embedded log when the image data is captured by the media capture device, wherein the at least one new log entry is a hash of the image data and a most recent entry of the embedded log.

23. The media capture device of claim 22, wherein the at least one new log entry includes one additional log entry for each of the captured image data and metadata associated with the captured image data.

24. The media capture device of claim 23, wherein the metadata includes one or more of a timestamp, a geospatial marker, and an edit operation associated with the media data.

25. The media capture device of claim 23, wherein the metadata includes a plurality of prior log entries from the embedded log.

26. The media capture device of claim 21, further comprising:

a removable storage coupled with the media capture device to store a mirrored log synchronized with the embedded log.

27. The media capture device of claim 26, wherein the memory of the media capture device is inaccessible to the location external to the digital camera, and the removable storage is accessible to the location external to the digital camera.