Associating content with households using smart cards

• US 7,080,039 B1
• Filed: 03/23/2000
• Issued: 07/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Marsh, David J
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell, James P.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Worjloh, Jalatee
• Application Number:
  US09/534,923
• Time in Patent Office: 2,308 Days
• Field of Search: 705 51- 59, 705/1, 705/64, 380/201, 380/228
• US Class Current: 705/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1014 to tokens
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/109 by using specially-adapted hardware at the client
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/367 involving electronic purses or money safes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0853 using an additional device, e.g. smartcard, SIM or a different communication terminal cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving additional secure or trusted devices H04L9/3234
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/12 Applying verification of the received information cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4181 for conditional access
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4367 Establishing a secure communication between the client and a peripheral device or smart card
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4405 involving video stream decryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4408 involving video stream encryption, e.g. re-encrypting a decrypted video stream for redistribution in a home network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/1675 Providing digital key or authorisation information for generation or regeneration of the scrambling sequence pseudo-random number generators in general G06F7/58

Abstract

Media content is associated with households using smart cards. The media content is encrypted and/or decrypted based on a household identifier corresponding to a smart card. Media content is encrypted such that it can only be decrypted with the same (or similar) smart card. Thus, the encrypted media content can be safely transferred within a computing device, stored, transferred to other computing devices, etc. because it cannot be decrypted without the smart card.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform acts including:

receiving scrambled media content;

descrambling the scrambled media content to produce descrambled media content, wherein the descrambled media content is processed within a processing module;

encrypting the descrambled media content to produce encrypted media content in response to the processing based on a household identifier corresponding to a smart card, wherein the encryption is performed within the processing module;

transmitting the encrypted media content between two of the plurality of processing modules in the computer; and

one or more of the plurality of processing modules decrypting the encrypted media content based on the household identifier to produce media content.

2. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the household identifier is stored on the smart card.

3. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the media content comprises one or more of audio content, video content, graphics content, animation content, and text content.

4. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the media content comprises enhancement data content.

5. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the processing module comprises a viewing delay module including a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform acts including transferring the encrypted media content to a mass storage device.

6. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the processing module comprises a network module including a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform acts including transferring the encrypted media content to another computer.

7. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the processing module comprises a decoding module including a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform acts including de-compressing the encrypted media content.

8. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 7, wherein the de-compressing includes MPEG de-compressing.

9. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising the one or more processing modules employing one or more memory obfuscation techniques to protect the media content during processing of the decrypted media content.

10. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the encrypting comprises encrypting media content data but not encrypting header information.

11. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising one of the plurality of processing modules processing the encrypted media content without decrypting the encrypted media content.

12. A method comprising:

receiving scrambled media content;

descrambling the scrambled media content to form descrambled media content wherein the descrambled media content is maintained within a module; and

encrypting the descrambled media content within the module to form encrypted media content that can be transmitted between modules, the encrypting of the descrambled media content is based on a household identifier corresponding to a smart card.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the household identifier is stored on the smart card.

14. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the media content from a programming source.

15. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the descrambled media content is encrypted within the processing module prior to it being transmitted to another module.

16. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein content of the encrypted media content comprises one or more of audio content, video content, graphics content, animation content, and text content.

17. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising storing the encrypted media content on a storage device for rendering at a later time.

18. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the encrypting of the descrambled media content encrypts the household identifier, but leaves the header information corresponding to the media content data unencrypted.

19. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

transferring the encrypted media content to a decoder;

decrypting the encrypted media content to form decrypted media content at the decoder, the decrypting is based on the household identifier;

decoding the decrypted media content at the decoder to form media content; and

outputting the media content to a renderer to render the media content.

20. A method as recited in claim 19, wherein the decoder is part of a rendering device.

21. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising:

transferring the encrypted media content to a decoder;

decrypting the encrypted media content, at the decoder, to form decrypted media content based on the household identifier;

decoding the decrypted media content at the decoder to form decoded media content;

encrypting the decoded media content, at the decoder, based on the household identifier to form a second encrypted media content;

transferring the second encrypted media content to a rendering device;

decrypting the second encrypted media content at the rendering device to form media content; and

rendering the media content at the rendering device.

22. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising transferring the received decoded media content to another computing device.

23. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 12.

24. A method comprising:

receiving scrambled media content;

descrambling the scrambled media content to form descrambled media content that is maintained and processed within a processing module;

encrypting the descrambled media content to form encrypted media content within the processing module, the encrypted media content is transported out of the processing module to a storage device;

storing the encrypted media content in the storage device;

obtaining the encrypted media content from the storage device; and

decrypting the encrypted media content based on a household identifier to form media content.

25. A method as recited in claim 24, wherein the household identifier is stored on a smart card.

26. A method as recited in claim 24, wherein the media content comprises one or more of audio content, video content, graphics content, animation content, and text content.

27. A method as recited in claim 24, further comprising:

decoding the encoded media content to form the media content; and

outputting the media content to a renderer to provide rendered media content.

28. A method as recited in claim 27, further comprising the same component decrypting the encrypted media content and decoding the media content.

29. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 24.

30. A method implemented by a first computing device, the method comprising:

receiving scrambled media content;

descrambling the scrambled media content to form descrambled media content;

encrypting the descrambled media content to form encrypted media content, the encrypting is based on a key, wherein the descrambling and the encrypting is performed in a single module; and

transmitting at least a portion of the encrypted media content to a second computing device.

31. A method as recited in claim 30, wherein the key is stored on the smart card.

32. A method as recited in claim 30, wherein the encrypted media content is decrypted at the second computing device to form media content, the media content comprises one or more of audio content, video content, graphics content, animation content, and text content.

33. A method as recited in claim 30, wherein the obtaining comprises receiving the media content from a broadcaster.

34. A method as recited in claim 30, further comprising obtaining the encrypted media content, wherein the obtaining comprises receiving the encrypted media content from a storage device.

35. A method as recited in claim 30, wherein the transmitting comprises streaming the encrypted media content to the other computing device.

36. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 30.

37. A system comprising:

a descrambling module to descramble scrambled media content to form descrambled media content;

an encryption module forming a part of the same module as the descrambling module to receive the descrambled media content, and encrypt the descrambled media content based on a key maintained in the encryption module; and

a controllable delayed viewing module, communicatively coupled to the encryption module, to receive the encrypted media content and store the encrypted media content on a storage device, wherein the encrypted media content is decrypted to form media content that can be displayed.

38. A system as recited in claim 37, wherein the storage device comprises a removable mass storage device.

39. A system as recited in claim 37, further comprising an additional module, communicatively coupled to the encryption component, to receive the encrypted media content, decrypt the encrypted media content to form decrypted media content, process the decrypted media content to form processed media content, and encrypt the processed media content, wherein the encrypting the processed media content is based on the key maintained on the smart card.

40. A system as recited in claim 37, wherein the encrypted media content includes encrypted encoded media content, further comprising a decoding module, communicatively coupled to the delayed viewing module, to receive the encrypted encoded media content, decrypt the encrypted encoded media content to form encoded media content, decode the encoded media content to form media content, and render the media content on a rendering module.

41. A system as recited in claim 37, further comprising a smart card controller module, communicatively coupled to the encryption module, to facilitate communication between the smart card and the encryption module.

42. A smart card comprising:

an authentication module to establish a secure communication channel with a computing device module for data that has been decrypted, wherein the secure communication channel extends between a descrambling/encryption module and a content renderer module, and wherein the secure communication channel forms at least a portion of a communication channel between the descrambling/encrypting module and the content renderer module, wherein the encryption module performs descrambling and encryption within the same module; and

a key associated with a particular household, wherein data transmitted through the secure communication channel is encoded within the descrambling/encryption module based on said key.

43. A smart card as recited in claim 42, further comprising a communications module to communicate the key to the computing device module to be used by the computing device module to encrypt media content.

44. A smart card as recited in claim 42, further comprising a communications module to communicate the key to the computing device module to be used by the computing device module to decrypt media content.

45. A smart card as recited in claim 42, further comprising a processor to execute instructions in the authentication module.

46. A smart card as recited in claim 42, further comprising a memory to store both the authentication module and the key.

47. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to:

obtain a descrambled media content;

obtain a household identifier corresponding to a smart card; and

use the household identifier to encrypt the descrambled media content to form encrypted media content within the same module as the descrambling of the media content, wherein the encrypted media content is transported between a pair of modules.

48. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 47, wherein the computer program, when executed, further causes the one or more processors to transmit the encrypted media content to a client computing device.

49. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 48, wherein the transmitting comprises streaming the encrypted media content to the client computing device via a network.

50. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 48, wherein the transmitting comprises broadcasting the encrypted media content to the client computing device.

51. An apparatus, comprising:

a descrambling and encrypting module for generating encrypted media content in response to received scrambled media content, wherein the encrypted media content is produced in response to a household identifier located on a smart card;

a content renderer module that renders media content in response to the encrypted media content produced by the descrambling and encrypting module;

a secure communication channel coupled between the descrambling and encrypting module and the content renderer module, wherein at least one module is located between and connects two segments of the secure communication channel.

52. The apparatus of claim 51, wherein the at least one module includes a demultiplexing module.

53. The apparatus of claim 51, wherein the at least one module includes a video analyzer module.

54. The apparatus of claim 51, wherein the at least one module includes an MPEG decoder module.

55. The apparatus of claim 51, wherein the at least one module includes a time shifting module.

56. The apparatus of claim 51, wherein the at least one module includes a decrypting portion, an encrypting portion, and a processor portion, wherein the decrypting portion decrypts the encrypted media content to produce a second media content, and wherein the processing portion processes the second media content to produce a processed media content, and wherein the encrypting portion encrypts the processed media content to form the media content that is rendered by the content renderer module.