Distributed Data Seeding via Transcryption and Key Fragmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In distributed multimedia delivery systems, existing technologies are vulnerable to attacks where a malicious user can obtain decryption keys and compromise encrypted data segments, leading to potential unauthorized access and piracy.
Innovation Solution
The system implements a transcryption process where encrypted data chunks are decrypted and re-encrypted with keys agreeable to the next box in the distribution chain, ensuring secure seeding and playback by making segments partially unusable without complete authentication and authorization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data segments are encrypted and distributed across multiple client machines, then data security is improved, but the system becomes vulnerable to key compromise attacks where a malicious user can obtain decryption keys and compromise all segments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the decryption key into multiple key fragments and distributes them across different segments stored in different client machines. To decrypt the data, a user must collect all key fragments from multiple machines and combine them. This segmentation of the key itself prevents a single point of failure and makes key compromise attacks much more difficult, as an attacker would need to compromise multiple distributed machines simultaneously rather than just one machine containing the complete key.
2Productivity
If multiple client machines store identical copies of data segments, then system availability and playback continuity are improved, but the risk of data piracy increases as compromised keys can be used to access all distributed copies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by making each client machine's copy of the data segment unique through local encryption. Each machine encrypts its stored segment with a machine-specific key or key fragment, so that even though the underlying data content is identical across machines, the encrypted form differs. This means that compromising one machine's encryption does not automatically compromise other machines' copies, as each has its own local security layer. The local quality differentiation prevents straightforward piracy across the distributed system while maintaining playback continuity.
Data Source
AI summary
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.