Asset Protection via Chunked Data and Key Sharding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are costly, performance-intensive, and incompatible with lightweight web applications, leading to slow responsiveness and user experience degradation, especially when protecting assets during HTTP delivery.
Innovation Solution
A server-side asset protection method that separates assets into chunks and keys, where the client requests and receives these chunks and keys separately, allowing reassembly and decoding of the asset, thereby minimizing processing overhead and licensing costs while preventing asset interception.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional DRM systems are used to protect assets, then asset protection is improved, but system cost and processing overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The asset is divided into multiple encrypted chunks, and the decryption key is separated into multiple key shards distributed across different servers. This segmentation prevents any single server or intercepted data from revealing the complete asset, thereby maintaining protection while reducing the complexity burden on individual system components.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a key management server as an intermediary that holds key shards and releases them only when all chunks are received. This intermediary approach simplifies the client's role (which only needs basic assembly functionality) while maintaining strong protection, effectively distributing complexity across multiple specialized components rather than concentrating it in one complex DRM system.
2Reliability
If conventional DRM systems are deployed, then asset protection is improved, but user experience and responsiveness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing the asset into chunks and distributing key shards across multiple servers, the system enables parallel downloading and processing. The client can receive chunks and begin assembly operations while key shards are being collected, improving responsiveness and user experience without sacrificing protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The client application performs the assembly and decryption operations locally using the received chunks and key shards, without requiring continuous server-side processing or complex DRM client software. This self-service approach reduces server overhead and improves responsiveness, while the distributed key architecture maintains protection against interception.
3Reliability
If conventional DRM systems are used, then asset protection is improved, but licensing costs and implementation overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses standard, widely-available encryption algorithms (such as AES) instead of proprietary DRM technologies. These standard cryptographic primitives are freely implementable and do not require expensive licensing, while still providing strong security when combined with the distributed chunk and key architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The system design uses universal, platform-independent technologies and protocols that can be implemented across different web browsers and devices without requiring proprietary software or hardware. This universality reduces implementation costs and avoids licensing fees associated with vendor-specific DRM solutions.
Data Source
AI summary
A device and method for an asset protection scheme includes receiving, by a data chunk serving server, a first request for an asset from a client device; transmitting, by the data chunk serving server, a plurality of data chunks to the client device, each of the data chunks corresponding to a portion of the asset; receiving, by a key serving server, a second request for key data from the client device, the key data corresponding to data removed from the asset to create the plurality of data chunks, wherein the plurality of data chunks and the key data correspond to an entirety of the asset; and transmitting, by the key serving server, the key data to the client device.