Method and apparatus to control access to content

• US 20080298358A1
• Filed: 06/04/2007
• Published: 12/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Inventors: Tasker, Michael Edric, John, Sunil Shashikanthan
• Granted Patent: US 7,953,079 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/389
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/80 characterised in that motion picture association of America [MPAA] ratings are used
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/23 using cryptography, e.g. encryption, authentication, key distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26603 for automatically generating descriptors from content, e.g. when it is not made available by its provider, using content analysis techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4381 Recovering the multiplex stream from a specific network, e.g. recovering MPEG packets from ATM cells transmission of MPEG streams over ATM H04L12/5601
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4405 involving video stream decryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4627 Rights management associated to the content security in data switching network management H04L41/28; security management or policies for network security H04L63/20; access security in wireless networks H04W12/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, apparatus and computer program product for accessing content via a packet-switched network based on a content access policy. The content is marked with a rating. The rating is extracted from the content, to verify conformance with the content access policy. On verification of the conformance between the rating and the content access policy, access to the marked content is provided.

Claims

1. A method for accessing content via a packet-switched network, the method comprising:

receiving the content, wherein the content is marked with a rating;

extracting the rating from the marked content;

verifying the rating is in conformance with a content access policy; and

providing access to the marked content on verification.

2. The method according to claim 1, the marked content comprising data packets transmitted in accordance with Internet Protocol.

3. The method according to claim 1, the content access policy being user defined.

4. The method according to claim 1, the rating comprising at least one of a television rating and a content description.

5. The method according to claim 1, the extracting the rating from the marked content step comprising:

identifying the numeric fields of a data packet wherein the rating is encoded; and

identifying the rating based on the values of the numeric fields.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising encrypting the marked content using a security key.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein providing access to the marked content on verification comprises providing the security key to a user.

8. A method for providing content information of a data packet delivered via a packet-switched network, the method comprising:

identifying the content of the data packet;

selecting a rating based on the content of the data packet; and

marking the data packet with the rating.

9. The method according to claim 8, the data packet being an Internet Protocol (IP) data packet.

10. The method according to claim 8, the marking comprising storing the rating in a data packet header.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising dynamically encoding the rating into numeric fields of the data packet header.

12. The method according to claim 10, the rating being encoded in a source port number of the header.

13. The method according to claim 10, the rating being encoded in a destination port number of the header.

14. The method according to claim 10, the rating being encoded in a destination IP address of the header.

15. The method according to claim 10, the rating being encoded in a source IP address of the header.

16. An apparatus for providing content access via a packet-switched network, the apparatus comprising:

a receiving module for receiving the content, the content being marked with a rating;

an extraction module for extracting the rating from the content;

a verification module for verifying that the rating conforms with a content access policy for a content consumer; and

an access-providing module for providing the consumer access to the content on verification.

17. The apparatus according to claim 16, further comprising:

an encryption module for encrypting the content, the encryption comprising adding a security key to the content.

18. The apparatus according to claim 17, the access-providing module comprising a security-key provider for providing the security key to the content consumer.

19. The apparatus according to claim 16, further comprising a channel-switching module for switching to an alternate content if the rating is not in conformance with the content access policy.

20. The apparatus according to claim 16, the rating comprising at least one of a television rating and a content description.

21. The apparatus according to claim 16, the content access policy for the content consumer being defined by a user through a user interface.

22. The apparatus according to claim 21, the user interface comprising a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

23. The apparatus according to claim 21, the user interface comprising a Command Line Interface (CLI).

24. The apparatus according to claim 16, the extraction module comprising:

a numeric-field identifier for identifying one or more numeric field comprising the rating; and

a rating identifier for identifying the rating based upon the value of the one or more numeric field.

25. The apparatus according to claim 24, the rating identifier comprising a content addressable database.

26. The apparatus according to claim 24, the rating identifier comprising a web service.

27. The apparatus according to claim 16, the marked content comprising Internet Protocol data packets.

28. An apparatus for providing content information of a data packet, wherein the data packet is delivered via a packet-switched network, the apparatus comprising:

a content-classification module for classifying the content of the data packet;

a rating-selection module for selecting a rating based on the content of the data packet; and

a marking module for marking the data packet with the rating.

29. A computer readable medium comprising a program that, when executed by a processor, performs a method for accessing content via a packet-switched network, the method comprising:

receiving the content, the content being marked with a rating;

extracting the rating from the content;

verifying the rating is in conformance with a content access policy; and

providing access to the content on verification.