Secured seeding of data in a distributed environment

• US 8,225,083 B2
• Filed: 04/11/2006
• Issued: 07/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NBC Universal Media LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Vudu Incorporated (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Ganesan, Prasanna, Goodman, Andrew M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Flynn, Nathan
• Assistant Examiner(s): WRIGHT, BRYAN F
• Application Number:
  US11/351,841
• Publication Number:
  US 20090024846A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,289 Days
• Field of Search: 713/182
• US Class Current: 713/150
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/00 Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures digital input from, or digital output to record carriers, e.g. to disk storage units, G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0464 using hop-by-hop encryption, i.e. wherein an intermediate entity decrypts the information and re-encrypts it before forwarding it
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32

Abstract

Techniques for seeding data among client machines, also referred to as boxes herein, are disclosed. To prevent the data distributed among the boxes from being illegitimately accessed or possessed, according to one aspect of the present invention, each box is configured to perform what is referred to herein as a transcription process. In other words, when encrypted data is received, the data is decrypted and then re-encrypted with a key agreeable with a next box configured to receive the data.

Claims

1. A method of seeding media content in a system, the method comprising:

determining a next device to receive data chunks after the data chunks are received by a first device;

decrypting the data chunks and re-encrypting the data chunks with a first key that enables the next device to decrypt the data chunks;

causing the re-encrypted data chunks to be transmitted to the next device; and

causing the next device to propagate the data chunks to a plurality of devices by (i) determining the plurality of devices to receive the data chunks, (ii) decrypting the re-encrypted data chunks, and (iii) for each of the plurality of devices to receive the data chunks, encrypting the data chunks with a second key that corresponds to each of a respective one of the plurality of devices to enable each of the plurality of devices to decrypt the data chunks,

wherein each of the plurality of devices is caused to recursively propagate its received data chunks to one or more other devices that are chosen to continue transmitting the received data chunks until each of the plurality of devices has received a designated portion of the data chunks.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data chunks are originally provided by a server, the data chunks representing at least a portion of one of a plurality of segments that further represent data for media content.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein data in each of the plurality of segments is non-consecutive so that the segments are streamed at substantially a same time and multiplexed to reassemble the data for the media content before the media content can be successfully played back.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the data for the media content is encrypted or the segments are each respectively encrypted before being represented in the data chunks by the server.

5. A method of seeding media content in a system, the method comprising:

providing data chunks that represent a plurality of data segments representing data for a title, wherein each of the data segments is non-consecutive in sequence;

receiving encrypted data chunks;

determining a next device to receive data chunks after the data chunks are received;

decrypting the data chunks and re-encrypting the data chunks with a first key that enables the next device to decrypt the data chunks;

causing the re-encrypted data chunks to be transmitted to the next device; and

causing the next device to propagate the data chunks to a plurality of devices by (i) determining the plurality of devices to receive the data chunks, (ii) decrypting the re-encrypted data chunks, and (iii) for each of the plurality of devices to receive the data chunks, encrypting the data chunks with a second key that corresponds to each of a respective one of the plurality of devices to enables each of the plurality of devices to decrypt the data chunks,

wherein each of the plurality of devices is caused to recursively propagate its received data chunks to one or more other devices that are chosen to continue transmitting the received data chunks until each of the plurality of devices has received a designated portion of the data chunks.

6. A system for seeding media content, the system comprising:

a server configured to provide data chunks that represent at least a portion of one of a plurality of segments pertaining to data for media content, wherein the data chunks are encrypted with a first key that enables one of a plurality of seeding devices to decrypt the data chunks; and

a plurality of devices, including a first device designated to be one of the plurality of seeding devices, the first device configured to (i) receive the encrypted data chunks from the server, (ii) decrypt the data chunks upon receiving the data chunks from the server, and (iii) re-encrypt the data chunks with a second key that enables a next device of the plurality of devices to decrypt the data chunks, the next device being determined to receive the data chunks from the first device; and

wherein one or more of the plurality of devices are configured to propagate the data chunks to one or more other devices in the plurality of devices, wherein each of the plurality of devices is caused to recursively propagate its received data chunks to other devices that are chosen to continue transmitting the received data chunks until each of the plurality of devices has received a designated portion of the data chunks.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein data in each of the plurality of segments is non-consecutive so that all segments are streamed at substantially a same time and multiplexed to reassemble the data for the media content before the media content can be successfully played back.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the data for the media content is encrypted or the segments are each respectively encrypted before being represented in the data chunks by the server.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein one of the plurality of devices is configured to play back the media content in response to retrieving at least some of the plurality of segments.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the one of the plurality of devices is configured to multiplex the segments to reassemble the data for the media content.