Sealing Enabling Bits to Isolated Environment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing digital rights management systems and similar applications face challenges in protecting enabling bits from misuse and unauthorized access, as they rely on the environment where the software runs being secure, which is not always guaranteed.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves using a trusted cryptography module to seal enabling bits, such as decryption keys, to a specific environment on a machine, leveraging the machine's isolation mechanisms to ensure that the keys are only accessible and usable within that trusted environment, thereby preventing misuse and external tampering.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If client software includes its own tampering resistance mechanisms, then protection of enabling bits is improved, but device complexity and overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trusted isolation mechanism (hypervisor or sandbox) as an intermediary between the client software and the enabling bits. This mediator provides the security function of protecting enabling bits from tampering without requiring the client software to implement its own protection mechanisms, thus resolving the contradiction between security improvement and complexity increase
Solution Approach 2:
The isolation mechanism is designed to automatically provide protection of enabling bits through its inherent isolation properties. The system leverages the trusted environment's built-in security features rather than requiring additional client-side security implementations, allowing the system to serve its own security needs without extra complexity
2Reliability
If active protection measures are implemented in client software, then prevention of key misuse is improved, but use of energy and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted isolation mechanism acts as an intermediary that handles security functions that would otherwise require continuous active protection in the client software. By offloading these security responsibilities to the isolation mechanism's inherent properties, the system reduces the computational burden on client software while maintaining security effectiveness
3Reliability
If environment isolation is enforced, then protection from external influences is improved, but ease of operation and software compatibility may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the execution environment into isolated trust zones using a hypervisor or sandbox. This segmentation provides strong protection from external influences while maintaining operational ease by allowing software to run within its designated environment without needing to explicitly manage security protocols, thus resolving the contradiction between security and ease of operation
Data Source
AI summary
Prevention of unpermitted use of enabling bits is achieved by sealing the enabling bits to an environment in such a way that the bits can only be unsealed by or from the environment, and by using an isolation mechanism to isolate the environment from other environments on the machine on which the environment operates. The environment is trusted not to use the enabling bits except in accordance with a set of rules governing the bits. The enabling bits may be a decryption key for DRM-protected content, and the rules may be a license governing the use of that content. Trust that the enabling bits will not be misused is established by trusting the environment not to use the enabling bits contrary to the rules, trusting the isolation mechanism to isolate the environment, and trusting the unsealing mechanism only to unseal the bits for the environment.