Method and apparatus for secure transport and storage of surveillance video

• US 8,146,157 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2005
• Issued: 03/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Rockstar Bidco LP (Rockstar Consortium Inc.)
• Inventors: Meier, Rolf, Duxbury, Guy
• Primary Examiner(s): Barron, Jr., Gilberto
• Assistant Examiner(s): KANAAN, SIMON P
• Application Number:
  US11/311,102
• Publication Number:
  US 20070140487A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,290 Days
• Field of Search: 380/36, 380/255
• US Class Current: 726/22
• 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: G08B 13/194 using image scanning and comparing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19665 Details related to the storage of video surveillance data television signal recording H04N5/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44245 Monitoring the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. its availability, bandwidth
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17309 Transmission or handling of upstream communications

Abstract

Security information such as fixed or dynamically received camera location information, laser signature information, timestamp information, and network information, may be used to secure the transport and storage of surveillance video. Where the surveillance video is to be transported on a communication network, the round trip time from a video data storage server to the surveillance camera and back to the video data storage server may be monitored and periodically added to the secured video data. By checking to see whether the round trip time has changed, it may be possible to determine whether the video has been tampered with. The secured video data may also be transported over two or more paths on the network to two or more video data storage servers so that redundant copies may be stored at different primary locations. By comparing copies of the data, alteration of one of the copies may be detected.

Claims

1. A method of securing video data, the method comprising the steps of:

transmitting a message including a first timestamp by a video data storage server to a secured video data source; and

receiving secured video data from the secured video data source, said secured video including information associated with the first timestamp, such that the round trip time from the video data storage server to the secured video data source and back to the video data storage server is calculated, stored along with the secured video data, and used to detect if the secured video data source or secured video data has been tampered with.

2. The method of securing video data of claim 1, wherein the secured video data further comprises location information associated with a location of the secured video data source.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured video data further comprises a second timestamp, said second timestamp being associated with a time the first timestamp was received by the secured video data source.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the information associated with the first timestamp is encrypted.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured video data is encrypted.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured video data contains time-variant time data and time-variant location information.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the round trip time to a reference round trip time; and

determining whether the secured video data has been tampered with based on the comparing the round trip time to the reference round trip time.

8. A method of using network round trip time information to verify surveillance video, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a secure video data source, a first timestamp from a video data storage server;

calculating, by the secure video data source, a second timestamp;

transmitting the first timestamp and the second timestamp along with video data to the video data storage server to enable the video data storage server to compute the round trip time based on the first timestamp, the second timestamp, and a time of arrival at the video data storage server to enable the secure video data storage server to store the round trip time along with the secured video data so that the round trip time is used to detect if the secured video data source or secured video data has been tampered with.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising adding first location information to the video data prior to the step of transmitting the first and second timestamps and video data to the video data storage server.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first location information comprises fixed location information and a time-variant location offset component.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the location information is based on global positioning system data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the global positioning system data is fixed.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the global positioning system data is dynamically received.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of generating coherent light from a laser light source, and wherein the video data comprises a reflection of the coherent light.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the second timestamp includes a time-variant local time offset.

16. A video processor, comprising:

a video input configured to receive video data;

a secured video output configured to output secured video data; and

control logic configured to add first timestamp information and second timestamp information to the video data, said first timestamp information being associated with a first timestamp received from a video storage server and characteristic of a network path from the video storage server to the video processor, the second timestamp information being associated with a local time at the video processor;

wherein the first timestamp information and second timestamp information enable round trip monitoring to be implemented on the secured video data to enable an alarm to be generated when the round trip time changes in a manner that is not explained by the network.

17. The video processor of claim 16, wherein the control logic is further configured to add first location information to the video data, said first location information comprising global positioning system location information and a time-variant location offset component.

18. The video processor of claim 17, wherein the first location information comprises fixed global positioning system location information.

19. The video processor of claim 16, wherein the control logic is further configured to encrypt the video data.

20. The video processor of claim 16, wherein the control logic is further configured to transmit the first timestamp information and second timestamp information without the video data to a second video storage server.