Encrypted Cached Content System Using Endpoint-Derived Keys
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Solution Overview
Problem
Caching proxy systems face challenges in controlling and managing politically sensitive content, leading to legal risks and uncertain liabilities, as existing solutions like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act do not comprehensively address all cases and jurisdictions.
Innovation Solution
An encrypted cached content system that generates user-side and content-provider-side keys from content request information, hashes the content request, and uses these keys to retrieve and cache encrypted content, making it difficult for caching system providers to decrypt or examine specific content, thus reducing liability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If caching proxies keep local copies of frequently requested resources to accelerate content requests, then productivity is improved, but the caching system provider faces legal risks and uncertain liabilities regarding control over cached content
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the encryption key into two separate parts: a user-side key component generated from user IHS data, and a content-provider-side key component generated from content provider IHS data. Neither party alone possesses the complete decryption key, forcing the caching system to act merely as a conduit rather than a controller of encrypted content, thereby reducing legal liability while maintaining caching functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The caching system becomes an intermediary that transmits encrypted content without possessing the ability to decrypt or examine it. The encryption mechanism acts as a mediator that prevents the caching provider from accessing content, transforming the system from a content controller to a neutral transmission channel, thus eliminating legal risks associated with content control
2Reliability
If administrators exercise control over cached content to manage politically sensitive material, then reliability is improved, but the system becomes vulnerable to legal challenges and jurisdictional disputes
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts the decryption capability from the caching system and places it exclusively in the hands of the endpoint systems (user IHS and content provider IHS). The caching system is taken out of the content control equation entirely, as it cannot access or examine encrypted content, thereby avoiding jurisdictional disputes while maintaining content delivery reliability
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of the caching system controlling content through traditional means, the system inverts the control mechanism by using encryption keys derived from endpoint data. The endpoints control the content through key generation, while the caching system merely stores and transmits encrypted data, reversing traditional control dynamics to achieve jurisdictional flexibility
Data Source
AI summary
An encrypted cached content system includes a user IHS, a content provider IHS, and a caching IHS. The caching IHS includes a caching engine that is configured to receive a content request from the user IHS. The caching engine generates a user-side key using content identifying information in the content request, and forwards the content request to the content provider IHS over a network as a content partial information request. In response to receiving a content partial information response from the content provider IHS over a network, the caching engine generates a content-provider-side key using header information in the content partial information response. The caching engine performs a hashing operation on the content request using a combination of the user-side key and the content-provider-side key to produce a hashed content request, and uses the hashed content request to retrieve content from the cache.