Secure transfer and tracking of data using removable non-volatile memory devices

• US 8,751,795 B2
• Filed: 09/13/2011
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mo-DV, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Mo-DV, Inc.
• Inventors: Widergren, Robert D., Boliek, Martin Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Holder, Bradley
• Assistant Examiner(s): SCHMIDT, KARI L
• Application Number:
  US13/231,764
• Publication Number:
  US 20120066493A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 713/160, 713/168, 713/169, 713/176, 713/181, 726/27, 726/29
• US Class Current: 713/160
• 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 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload

Abstract

A protected memory source device including removable non-volatile memory durably stores a signature such as a serial number or identifier, which is used to mark protected multimedia content legally stored on the protected memory device. The protected multimedia content is moved from the source device to another device, such as a target device used to aggregated protected content in a library. Moving the protected multimedia content involves replacing a source-specific header, comprising digital rights management metadata and/or other security metadata allowing only a device having the source device signature access to the content, with a target-specific header comprising digital rights management metadata and/or other security metadata allowing only a device having the target device signature access to the content. The transfer is done using one of a variety of transfer methods with either a trusted or un-trusted host system connecting the source device to the target device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of transferring content, performed on a source device having one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs which when executed by the one or more processors cause performance of the method, the method comprising:

receiving from a target device, a target device signature;

accessing a content file having encrypted content and a source-specific header allowing only a device having a source device signature access to the encrypted content, wherein the source device comprises a device having non-volatile semiconductor memory storing one or more content files, wherein the source device signature is a serial number of the source device, is a value that is predefined function of the serial number of the source device, or is a set of alpha-numeric characters that identify the source device;

decrypting the encrypted content using a content key;

removing source-specific information from the content;

adding target-specific information to the content, wherein the source-specific information is one or more of a source watermark and source stenographic information, and wherein the target-specific information is one or more of a target watermark and target stenographic information;

creating a new content key;

encrypting the decrypted content with the new content key to create re-encrypted content;

creating for the content file a target-specific header allowing only a device having the target device signature access to the content;

encrypting the target-specific header;

then

transferring to the target device, the content file with the re-encrypted content, the new content key and the encrypted target-specific header.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein creating the target-specific header includes performing a predefined conversion process on the source-specific header to produce the target-specific header.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein creating the target-specific header includes decrypting the source-specific header, replacing at least a portion of the source-specific header with information corresponding to the target device signature to produce a new header, and encrypting the new header to produce the target-specific header.

4. The method of claim 1, including:

transferring a source public key to the target device;

receiving a target public key from the target device;

receiving from the target device, an encrypted message encrypted with the source public key, the message including the target device signature; and

decrypting the message with a source private key to recover the target device signature; and

wherein encrypting the target-specific header comprises encrypting the target-specific header with the target public key.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein receiving the encrypted message comprises receiving the encrypted message from an un-trusted host that receives the encrypted message from the target device.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an encrypted target device signature from an un-trusted host that receives the encrypted target device signature from the target device; and

decrypting the encrypted target device signature.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after the transferring at least the encrypted content of the content file to the target device, deleting the content file from the source device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

incrementing in the target-specific header and the source-specific header a copy count.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the content file having encrypted content and the source specific header comprises accessing digital rights management metadata within the source specific header.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the target specific header includes digital rights management metadata.

11. A computer-implemented method of transferring content, performed on a target device having one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs which when executed by the one or more processors cause performance of the method, the method comprising:

receiving a source public key from the source device;

transferring a target public key to the source device;

transferring to a source device a target device signature, wherein the target device signature is a serial number of the target device, is a value that is predefined function of the serial number of the target device, or is a set of alpha-numeric characters that identify the target device;

receiving, from the source device, an encrypted target-specific header allowing only a device having the target device signature access to a content file having encrypted content, wherein the target device comprises a device having non-volatile semiconductor memory storing one or more content files;

wherein the target device signature, is encrypted with the source public key;

wherein the received target-specific header is encrypted with the target public key; and

wherein the target-specific header is decrypted with a target private key;

decrypting the target-specific header; and

receiving, from the source device, the content file, the content file including the encrypted content of the content file, wherein the received content file includes the source-specific header, and the storing includes replacing the source-specific header of the content file with the target-specific header, wherein the source-specific information is one or more of a source watermark and source stenographic information, and wherein the target-specific information is one or more of a target watermark and target stenographic information; and

storing the received content file and the target-specific header so that the content file is accessible to the target device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein replacing the source-specific header includes replacing at least a portion of the source-specific header with information corresponding to the target device signature.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein transferring the target device signature to the source device comprises:

creating a message including a target device signature;

encrypting the message; and

transferring to a source device, the encrypted message, the message including the target device signature.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein transferring the target device signature to the source device further includes transferring the encrypted message to an un-trusted host that transfers the encrypted message to the source device.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the encrypted target-specific header comprises digital rights management metadata.

16. A system, comprising:

one or more processors for executing programs;

memory storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors;

the one or more programs comprising instructions for;

receiving from a target device, a target device signature;

accessing a content file having encrypted content and a source-specific header allowing only a device having a source device signature access to the encrypted content, wherein the source device comprises a device having non-volatile semiconductor memory storing one or more content files, wherein the source device signature is a serial number of the source device, is a value that is predefined function of the serial number of the source device, or is a set of alpha-numeric characters that identify the source device;

decrypting the encrypted content using a content key;

removing source-specific information from the content;

adding target-specific information to the content, wherein the source-specific information is one or more of a source watermark and source stenographic information, and wherein the target-specific information is one or more of a target watermark and target stenographic information;

creating a new content key;

encrypting the decrypted content with the new content key to create re-encrypted content;

creating for the content file a target-specific header allowing only a device having the target device signature access to the content;

encrypting the target-specific header;

then

transferring to the target device, the content file with the re-encrypted content, the new content key and the encrypted target-specific header.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein creating the target-specific header includes performing a predefined conversion process on the source-specific header to produce the target-specific header.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein creating the target-specific header includes decrypting the source-specific header, replacing at least a portion of the source-specific header with information corresponding to the target device signature to produce a new header, and encrypting the new header to produce the target-specific header.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the one or more programs further comprise instructions for:

transferring a source public key to the target device;

receiving a target public key from the target device;

receiving from the target device, an encrypted message encrypted with the source public key, the message including the target device signature; and

decrypting the message with a source private key to recover the target device signature; and

wherein encrypting the target-specific header comprises encrypting the target-specific header with the target public key.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein receiving the encrypted message comprises receiving the encrypted message from an un-trusted host that receives the encrypted message from the target device.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the source-specific header comprises digital rights management metadata, and the target-specific header comprises digital rights management metadata.

22. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions that when executed by one or more processors of a device cause performance of a method comprising:

receiving from a target device, a target device signature;

accessing a content file having encrypted content and a source-specific header allowing only a device having a source device signature access to the encrypted content, wherein the source device comprises a device having non-volatile semiconductor memory storing one or more content files, wherein the source device signature is a serial number of the source device, is a value that is a predefined function of the serial number of the source device, or is a set of alpha-numeric characters that identify the source device;

decrypting the encrypted content using a content key;

removing source-specific information from the content;

adding target-specific information to the content, wherein the source-specific information is one or more of a source watermark and source stenographic information, and wherein the target-specific information is one or more of a target watermark and target stenographic information;

creating a new content key;

encrypting the decrypted content with the new content key to create re-encrypted content;

creating for the content file a target-specific header allowing only a device having the target device signature access to the content;

encrypting the target-specific header;

then

transferring to the target device, the content file with the re-encrypted content, the new content key and the encrypted target-specific header.

23. The computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein creating the target-specific header includes performing a predefined conversion process on the source-specific header to produce the target-specific header.

24. The computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein creating the target-specific header includes decrypting the source-specific header, replacing at least a portion of the source-specific header with information corresponding to the target device signature to produce a new header, and encrypting the new header to produce the target-specific header.

25. The computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein the one or more programs further comprise instructions for:

transferring a source public key to the target device;

receiving a target public key from the target device;

receiving from the target device, an encrypted message encrypted with the source public key, the message including the target device signature; and

decrypting the message with a source private key to recover the target device signature; and

wherein encrypting the target-specific header comprises encrypting the target-specific header with the target public key.

26. The computer readable storage medium of claim 25, wherein receiving the encrypted message comprises receiving the encrypted message from an un-trusted host that receives the encrypted message from the target device.

27. The computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein the source-specific header comprises digital rights management metadata, and the target-specific header comprises digital rights management metadata.

28. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions that when executed by one or more processors of a device cause performance of a method comprising:

transferring to a source device a target device signature, wherein the target device signature is a serial number of the target device, is a value that is a predefined function of the serial number of the target device, or is a set of alpha-numeric characters that identify the target device;

receiving, from the source device, an encrypted target-specific header allowing only a device having the target device signature access to a content file having encrypted content, wherein the target device comprises a device having non-volatile semiconductor memory storing one or more content files;

wherein the target device signature, is encrypted with the source public key;

wherein the received target-specific header is encrypted with the target public key; and

wherein the target-specific header is decrypted with a target private key;

decrypting the target-specific header; and

receiving, from the source device, the content file, the content file including the encrypted content of the content file, wherein the received content file includes the source-specific header, and the storing includes replacing the source-specific header of the content file with the target-specific header, wherein the source-specific information is one or more of a source watermark and source stenographic information, and wherein the target-specific information is one or more of a target watermark and target stenographic information; and

storing the received content file and the target-specific header so that the content file is accessible to the target device.