SE524738C2 - Secure download and server controlled access to proprietary data with limited bandwidth requirements - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a system and method for server side control of storage and momentary access to restricted material from a remote client side computer. The method comprises the following steps: sending an identification and selection code from a client to a server over a connection between the client and the server; sending selected digital materials in encrypted format from the server to the client in response to the reception of the identification and selection code; sending the information code and an initiation request from the client to the server; generating a decryption key at said server for decryption of the selected digital materials in response of the reception of the information code and an initiation request; executing a control programme in the client; sending the decryption key from the server to the client; and accessing the selected digital materials at the client under control of the control programme using the decryption key, and wherein the control programme is designed to regulate the display of a service connected with the selected digital materials. The present invention may as well provide a beneficial model for advance download and timed access of any digital material, where real time online access may be difficult due to bandwidth requirements.

Description

524 738 ~ o -. .- BACKGROUND Life for people and companies is becoming increasingly dependent on the distribution of materials electronically. Simultaneously with this digital evolution, there is an increased need to protect certain materials from unauthorized access and to this end, a number of encryption methods and security procedures have been developed by a large number of inventors. Although these known inventions cover a large part of the needs of a more computer - dependent world, there are certain specific needs and problems which the present invention seeks to cover and solve. Although more and more people, companies and institutions linked to the "Information Highway" or the Internet with increasing bandwidth, it would be very limiting for some operations to be forced to rely on being able to conduct business or trade only with clients and customers who have access to broadband connections. An example where such restrictions would be very harmful is the e-learning environment. Although learning and access to knowledge up to and including a large part of the last century was largely limited to specific places and educational institutions and libraries, such knowledge is now becoming more and more widely available via electronic channels and accessible from home or from work. Distance learning is becoming one of the preferred ways to acquire skills and knowledge and universities are facing the challenge of providing service to an increasing proportion of students via the Internet. Authors, artists and producers are also facing the need to distribute their work electronically. While some are slow to adapt to these new distribution channels, others have quickly established new forms of business that work mainly and sometimes entirely through electronic media. For each such effort, there has probably been a solution to their specific needs, using in part solutions already invented.

The present solution stems from the need for a solution to such a specific and segmented digital distribution problem, namely the situation where there is a need to provide the client or customer with a copy in advance of the proprietary material but where said client or customer may not be given access to the material at this time. This is the case when, for example, a connection with limited bandwidth prevents real-time access, such as access to learning material or a video film or a high-resolution image or similar digitized material.

The natural solution as the real-time execution of electronic material is prevented by limitations of the network connection is to download the material in advance. The material is downloaded in advance at the same time as the user does something else and as soon as the download has been completed in advance, users can start using or viewing the material. This works well as long as the material is not proprietary; the user is allowed to keep an unprotected copy of the material on his hard drive or mass storage device; there are no payment transactions or other conditional activities before access can be allowed. This is often not the case. A company that provides online certification or knowledge estimates over a network or the Internet must ensure that the user is prevented from accessing the material except in the exact time interval in which the assessment is performed. Similarly, an institution that provides learning materials over a network or the Internet has a need to restrict access to certain parts of the material until certain conditions have been met by the user. An example is if the course provided over the Internet contains a multi-megabyte real-time video segment. It is inconceivable that the student will have to wait twenty minutes while the segment is downloaded over a slow modem. The preferred solution would be to let the student download all the material so that it is available immediately when needed. However, this gives the problems described above or in more detail: Can the user be given access to the material as soon as it is downloaded? Is it acceptable that the user can look at the material not in sequence? 524 738 Can the user be allowed to copy and redistribute the material? Will the user have access to the material before he or she has actually paid for it? Should access be limited to a specific moment of time? There are obviously other and similar issues in connection with this but the above gives a fairly complete picture of the problems solved by the present invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system of the kind initially described, in which the above-mentioned problems with known systems are solved or at least minimized. A first object is thus to provide a method and a system, whereby proprietary material can be downloaded in advance.

Another object is to provide a method and system in which downloaded material can be protected.

A further object is to provide a method and a system whereby proprietary material which has previously been encrypted and downloaded can be accessed instantly.

A further object is to provide a computer software product which is directly downloadable to an internal memory of a server or client computer.

The above objects are achieved by a method, a system and computer program products as defined in appended claims 1, 7, 8 and 6, respectively. 9.

From this aspect, the present invention provides systems and methods for controlling the users as controlled by certain transactions and an uninterrupted connection to an Access control. ~. ._ server (ACS), which is usually the same or a related server to the server from which the initial download was made. This feature of the present invention ensures that: The user has access to the material only during the specific time period when the user is intended to have access.

There is no access to the material in unencrypted form either before or after the access period.

Unauthorized use of the material during the actual access period is made very difficult if not impossible.

The present invention is designed to solve the problem of controlling and allowing access in real time while preventing unauthorized access at other times to proprietary material in digital format while enabling such material to be downloaded and stored in advance of their actual use. on a remote computer's hard disk or mass storage device. This provides a number of benefits, such as the real-time display and use of materials that would otherwise be impossible to display due to bandwidth requirements; the ability to download material in advance but release it once payment has been made; the ability to terminate access to material when a certain period of time has elapsed or as soon as a transaction signal is transmitted over the network or a network connection is lost.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 shows a simplified overview of a system according to the invention comprising an Access Control Server and a Remote Client Computer; Fig. 2 shows a flow chart for logic circuit arrangements of an automated client software contained in the remote client computer of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 shows a flow chart of the logical circuit arrangement of the Access Control Server in Fig. 1 and Fig. 4 shows a principal flow chart of the relationship between the remote client computer and the Access Control Server in Fig. 1.

DETAILED DETAILS OF ITPPFTNNTNGFIN In the following, a detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention will be given. In this specification, "ACS" or "Access Control Server" refers to a central computer that has or does not have the material secured and which controls the download processes and remote access of this material on a client computer, while "Client Software" refers to a specific computer program or software that can not work independently but works depending on software running on a server, in this case the Access Control Server.

As previously described, the present invention is directed to the process of providing and controlling access to proprietary material, which has been downloaded in advance, at a remote location.

It should be noted that the present invention does not involve the actual method or protocol of the download. The inventor acknowledges that there are methods and protocols for the download process, such as FTP or HTTP to give some examples. The fact that such methods and download protocols are readily available does not guarantee that a previous download can be made without compromising or exposing the material being downloaded.

It should also be noted that the present invention does not relate to any direct encryption method or algorithm used to prevent unauthorized access to the material in question. 524 738 o n. - a- The inventor recognizes that there are readily available methods for securely locking any digital material from unwanted access by an unauthorized user, such as Blowfish or TASC and other systems. Immediately when such an algorithm has been used to decrypt the material, however, the material is unlocked and usually free for the user to use in the way he wishes to use it, to copy it, modify it or redistribute it, which in itself is a form of unauthorized access and which the present invention seeks to prevent.

The system according to the invention comprises two main components designed as hardware or software, which work in symbiosis to achieve the desired result of being able to handle access at a remote location to material that has previously been downloaded. Although the components of the invention rely on the generic processing power of the computers in which they are located, they themselves contain the logic and device capacity required to complete the entire access and control procedure. As shown in Fig. 1, the system includes a central computer called the Access Control Server or ACS 10 which is provided with an interface connecting it to the Internet or other Information Highway shown as a network 20 and which can be accessed via an Internet Protocol address via DNS. network or similar addressing system. The ACS contains one or more databases that contain the names or identities in other forms for the individuals who have requested access to certain material. The databases also contain information on whether or not these individuals should be granted access and define the conditions under which the individuals are granted access and to what material. The ACS 10 also contains active server circuit arrangements (not shown) which at any given moment control whether any or some of these individuals who have not yet registered seek access or are logged in or connected to SGITVGITI.

The system also includes a client computer 30 which includes a mass storage device for storing downloads, client software for the automated downloads, and integrating 524 738 u ~. . .- series of execution software for displaying materials during the periods for which use has been granted by the ACS 10.

A segment 34 of the internal memory 32 of the client computer is used for an automated advanced download of proprietary materials in encrypted format. Access to the material is handled by the ACS 10. Even if it is not a requirement, a transaction process, which is shown briefly in Figs. 2 and 3, can start with an individual visiting a certain web page that is on or linked to the server. The visiting individual makes a choice, a choice to participate in a certain certification or assessment or a choice to join a certain educational activity or course or simply a choice to watch a certain movie video or listen to selected music.

Thus, the environment can be an assessment and certification environment, an educational environment, a music, video, photography or similar environment where secure download of proprietary material is required.

In this step, the individual would identify himself as a condition for continuing the process and the server responds by generating a personal code associated with the individual being registered as well as a code associated with the choice made by the individual. In this step, or later if the operator of the invention so desires, the client software is allowed to be manually downloaded from the web page of the individual and installed as a normal software program on the client computer 30.

The identity code and selection code generated by the server in a format determined by the operator of the invention are then passed on, preferably as an electronic letter or in some other way, to the individual wishing to register for the service.

When the codes are received by the individual, he or she must start the previously downloaded and installed software to activate the software using his or her personal identity code and election code. At this time, the individual's computer must be connected to the Internet or the current network and the software verifies the connection. After receiving the necessary codes, these are entered in the appropriate fields displayed by the software and a personal password is selected and entered; alternatively, such a password is suggested by the server and it is accepted or changed by the user.

At this point, the software and the user's identity are activated and his or her choice is known for the said ACS. The download of the material required for the selected service begins in the background and continues until it is downloaded in its entirety in a format that utilizes encryption techniques, such as Blowfish or TASC. The download will of course be interrupted if the Internet or other network connection is lost before the download is completed. Preferably, the download is paused when the user presses a key on the keyboard so as not to slow down the normal operation of the computer during the download time. To ensure that the download is truly completed even if the user chooses to restart their computer, the software is preferably registered as a service or autostart object on the computer. The download activity would then resume if it was not completed even after restarting the computer and would continue regardless of whether the display of the client software is visible on the user's screen or not. When not displayed, the software simply works in the background.

To keep the user informed about the current status of the download, it is intended that the software displays an indicator in the computer's system box or in another way, for example an LED displayed as an icon that shows a red light for ongoing download and a green light for a completed download. .

The user is free to start using the material downloaded in this way as soon as the above indicator has shown that the download cycle is complete. When the user starts the software in this step, its character has changed from a download management client to a usage client. The user is asked to log in to the ACS using the same codes as u - | »N. 5 4 ..- I ... . 2 5 ..... .'n: sn: .gg ~ u. O. U. Ua: p ... n 'I * fl u .. ... u. 'i I to | »-. v. 10 when the download began and to enter their personal password. An Internet or other network connection is a condition at this time. The ACS verifies that all and any additional conditions, such as prior payment or procedures determined by the operator of the invention, have been met. When the conditions have been verified as fulfilled, the ACS generates a suitable decryption key, thereby enabling transparent decryption on the user's client machine. An automatic download of a control program from the ACS then takes place. The control program designed to control the display of the service is embedded in the RAM of the client computer 30 and executed immediately. This program can control, for example, the rate and sequence at which questions in an assessment are to be displayed or regulate some other feature of the previously downloaded resources. The desired service as regulated by the control program then starts, whether it is an assessment procedure, a learning course segment, a film video show, a music performance or something else. The service is allowed to continue as long as the control program runs according to schedule and ends when the schedule ends or when and if the Internet or network connection is lost. If the connection is accidentally interrupted or due to technical problems beyond the user's control, ie in the middle of a training course segment, sufficient information will have been sent to the ACS during the control program's activity to be able to restart at the point where it was interrupted if desired. that this should happen.

It should also be noted that the encrypted materials present on the hard disk or mass memory of the user's computer remain encrypted at all times and exist in decrypted format only briefly in the RAM of the user's computer during the display of the materials as handled by the control program.

The main operation for the procedure how the materials are decrypted to RAM and displayed on the user computer screen is indicated in Fig. 4. Recordable activities of the user when he uses the client software are registered by the ACS in suitable databases, 524 738. . ~. .- ll, for example, the user progressing through the material, any answers given to questions, the time spent on each segment of the presentation, etc. The ACS is also responsible for any interactive server answers that must be given to the user at his request or as a response to specific steps of the procedure. This is not an indispensable ingredient of the invention but is available more to optimize the safety and operation of the procedure. It is thus preferred that the resources required for the presentation, in particular the resources required for time and bandwidth for download, be provided as previously encrypted and downloaded and any other answers provided by the ACS directly. In this context, the ACS may also need to redirect a response from the user to an online support person or to a queue for cases awaiting a manual response. The support line may or may not have voice and / or video capability.

At a time when required by the schedule for an automatically downloaded control program or as scheduled by data in the databases of the ACS, the resources downloaded on the user's computer are deleted, whereby the entirety of the transactions is completed. However, if the operator of the services according to the invention so desires, it may be desirable to download material in addition to what the user has requested in order to be prepared for further request expected by the user. This could, for example, be an automatic download of pieces of music that are in line with the user's taste in music, a list of videos that are on a weekly film list or a follow-up training course in addition to a course that the user has chosen to follow. The main reason for doing this would be to be able to provide a desired service faster at a time when the user desires it. To accomplish this, the user should preferably need to enter the amount of disk space that he or she is willing to set aside for the service already when he or she first activates the client software that handles the automated background download cycle. 524 738 gjzræ: - n. Although a number of cooperating processes have been described above that limit and are interoperable in the execution and use of this invention, the key to the invention as set forth in the following claims shall be identified as the manner in which an ACS handles the distribution of selective decryption keys and the way in which it monitors and controls the instantaneous and timed access to proprietary materials during such time as the user's computer is online with the Access Control Server.

Claims (10)

1. l. 524 738 13 PATENT REQUIREMENTS Method for automated remote control of scheduled access to digital material, including the following steps: a) b) C) d) 9) f) 9) 2. sending an identification and selection code from a client to a server via a connection between the client and the server; sending selected digital materials in encrypted format from the server to the client in response to the receipt of the identification and selection code; sending the information code and an initialization request from the client to the server; generating a decryption key at said server for decrypting the selected digital materials in response to receiving the information code and an initialization request; executing a control program in the client; sending the decryption key from the server to the client and accessing the selected digital materials at the client under the control of the control program using the decryption key, the control program being designed to control the display of a service associated with the selected digital materials. The method of claim 1, wherein the execution of the control program is interrupted when the connection between the client and the server is interrupted. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the accessed selected digital materials exist in decrypted format only in volatile memory. 524 738 14 A method according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein step b) sending selected digital materials in encrypted format from the server to the client is performed as a background task. A method according to any one of claims 1-4, wherein step f) sending the decryption key is preceded by a step verifying that all the conditions, such as previous payment, for sending the decryption key are met. A method according to any one of claims 1-5, wherein step g) accessing the selected software materials comprises accessing only a portion of the selected digital materials at a time. A method according to any one of claims 1-6, comprising the further step of deleting the selected software materials at the client under the control of the control program. A system for automated remote control of scheduled access to digital material, comprising: - a server computer (10), - a client computer (30), - a network (20) connecting the server computer and the client computer, the server computer and the client computer being arranged to perform the method according to claim 1. A computer program product directly downloadable to the internal memory of a digital server computer (10) connected to a communication network (20), the computer program product comprising software code parts for performing the following steps: a) receiving an identification and selection code from a client; 524 758 15 b) sending selected digital materials in encrypted format from the client in response to the receipt of the identification and selection code; c) receiving the information code and an initialization request from the client; d) generating a decryption key at said server for decrypting the selected digital materials in response to the receipt of the information code and an initialization request; e) sending a control program to the client for execution; f) sending the decryption key to the client; and g) initiating execution of the control program to access the selected digital materials at the client under the control of the control program using the decryption key, the control program being designed to control the display of a service associated with the selected digital materials. A computer program product directly downloadable to the internal memory of a digital client computer (30) connected to a communication network (20), the computer program product comprising software code parts for performing the following steps: a) sending an identification and selection code to a server; b) receiving selected digital materials in encrypted format from the server; c) sending the information code and an initialization request to the server; d) receiving a control program from the server; e) receiving a decryption key from the server and f) accessing the selected digital materials at the client under the control of the control program using the decryption key, the control program being designed to control the display of a service associated with the selected digital materials.