METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROTECTED CONTENT DATA PROCESSING

• US 20110004737A1
• Filed: 07/02/2009
• Published: 01/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Greenebaum, Kenneth
• Granted Patent: US 8,225,061 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/163
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine

Abstract

Methods and an apparatuses that perform protected content data processing with limited access to system resources are described. One or more regions in a memory (including a source memory and a destination memory) can be allocated and unprocessed content data can be mapped to the source memory. A process can be initialized with the source and destination memories to process the content data. The process can be prevented from accessing resource other than the allocated regions in the memory. The processed content data can be stored in the destination memory. In one embodiment, the content data can include media content. A playing device can be instructed to play the media content based on the processed content data via the destination memory.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

allocating a source memory and a destination memory for a decoder process to decode compressed content data, the source memory including the compressed content data; and

preventing the decoder process from accessing resources other than the source and destination memories during decoding the compressed content data, wherein the destination memory is used to store the decoded content data and wherein a playing device is to play media content based on a the decoded content data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising mapping the compressed content data into the source memory.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the compressed content data includes compressed video content associated with an application process.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the decoder process and the application process are run by independent executable codes.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein preventing the decoder process comprises:

determining a limitation to access system resources for the decoder process; and

denying a resource access request from the decoder process if the resource access request violates the limitation.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the determination of the limitation is based on a relinquishing request from the decoder process, and wherein the relinquishing request indicates one or more system resources that the decoder process is allowed to access.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the limitation indicates the decoder process is allowed to access the source area and the destination area.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the limitation indicates the decoder process is restricted to access the source area in a read-only mode.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the limitation indicates the decoder process is restricted to access the destination area in a write-only mode.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the denying comprises:

generating a failure message for the application process, the failure message indicating that the compressed content data cannot be decoded.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

initiating the decoder process with the source and destination memories; and

detecting whether the decoder process crashes while decoding the compressed data.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

initiating a separate decoder process to decode the compressed content data if the decoder process crashes.

13. A computer implemented method, comprising:

initializing a process with one or more regions allocated in memory, the process to perform processing operations on content data;

sending a request from the process to relinquish access rights to resources other than a plurality of accessible resources, wherein the plurality of accessible resources include the one or more regions allocated in memory; and

performing the processing operations on the content data, wherein the processing operations are restricted from accessing resources other than the plurality of accessible resources, wherein the one or more allocated regions are used to store the processed content data and wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the processed content data.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the one or more regions include a source memory and a destination memory, and wherein the content data is processed from the source memory to the destination memory.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the sending the request comprises calling an API (application programming interface).

16. The method of claim 13, wherein one of the access rights relinquished includes a right to access a network connection.

17. A computer implemented method, comprising:

maintaining one or more decoder processes loaded in memory, each decoder process to decode data;

in response to receiving encoded data from an application process, identifying one of the decoder processes, wherein the identified decoder process is restricted from accessing resources other than a source memory and a destination memory allocated for the identified decoder process; and

instructing the identified decoder process to decode the encoded data from the source memory and store the decoded data in the destination memory, wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the decoded data.

18. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

allocating a source memory and a destination memory for a decoder process to decode compressed content data, the source memory including the compressed content data; and

preventing the decoder process from accessing resource other than the source and destination memories during decoding the compressed content data, wherein the destination memory is used to store the decoded content data and wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the decoded content data.

19. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

initializing a process with one or more regions allocated in memory, the process to perform processing operations on content data;

sending a request from the process to relinquish access rights to resources other than a plurality of accessible resources, wherein the plurality of accessible resources include the one or more regions allocated in memory; and

performing the processing operations on the content data, wherein the processing operations are restricted to access from accessing resources other than the plurality of accessible resources, wherein the one or more allocated regions are used to store the processed content data and wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the processed content data.

20. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

maintaining one or more decoder processes loaded in memory, each decoder process to decode data;

in response to receiving encoded data from an application process, identifying one of the decoder processes, wherein the identified decoder process is restricted from accessing resources other than a source memory and a destination memory allocated for the identifier decoder process; and

instructing the identified decoder process to decode the encoded data from the source memory and store the decoded data in the output memory, wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the decode data.

21. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory storing executable instructions including an image of decode codes;

a display device coupled to the memory; and

a processor coupled to memory and the display device, the processor being configured to execute the executable instructions from the memory to;

allocate a source memory and a destination memory for a decoder process to decode compressed content data, the source memory including the compressed content data, and

prevent the decoder process from accessing resources other than the source and destination memories during decoding the compressed content data, wherein the destination memory is used to store the decoded content data and wherein a playing device is to play media content based on the decoded content data.