We present a simple, efficient, and secure multicast protocol with copyright protection in an open and insecure network environment. There is a wide variety of multimedia applications that can benefit from using our secure multicast protocol, e.g., the commercial pay-per-view video multicast, or highly secure military intelligence video conference. Our secure multicast protocol is designed to achieve the following goals. (1) It can run in any open network environment. It does not rely on any security mechanism on intermediate network switches or routers. (2) It can be built on top of any existing multicast architecture. (3) Our key distribution protocol is both secure and robust in the presence of long delay or membership message. (4) It can support dynamic group membership, e.g., JOIN/LEAVE/EXPEL operations, in a network bandwidth efficient manner. (5) It can provide copyright protection for the information provider. (6) It can help to identify insiders in the multicast session who are leaking information to the outside world. We have implemented a prototype system which validates our secure multicast protocol and evaluated it against various performance matrices. The experimental results are very encouraging, but also show where new engineering approaches need to be deployed to conform fully to the design goals.

The use of digital video offers immense opportunities for creators; however, the ability for anyone to make perfect copies and the ease by which those copies can be distributed also facilitate misuse, illegal copying and distribution (“piracy”), plagiarism, and misappropriation. Popular Internet software based on a peer-to-peer architecture has been used to share copyrighted movies, music, software, and other materials. Concerned about the consequences of illegal copying and distribution on a massive scale, content owners are interested in digital rights management (DRM) systems which can protect their rights and preserve the economic value of digital video. A DRM system protects and enforces the rights associated with the use of digital content. Unfortunately, the technical challenges for securing digital content are formidable and previous approaches have not succeeded. We overview the concepts and approaches for video DRM and describe methods for providing security, including the roles of encryption and video watermarking. Current efforts and issues are described in encryption, watermarking, and key management. Lastly, we identify challenges and directions for further investigation in video DRM.

Multicast enables efficient large-scale content distribution by providing an efficient transport mechanism for one-to-many and many-to-many communication. The very properties that make multicast attractive, however, also make it a challenging environment in which to provide content security. We show how the fundamental properties of the multicast paradigm cause security issues and vulnerabilities. We focus on four areas of research in security for multicast content distribution: receiver access control, group key management, multicast source authentication, and multicast fingerprinting. For each we explain the vulnerabilities, discuss the objectives of solutions, and survey work in the area. Also, we briefly highlight other security issues in multicast content distribution including source access control, secure multicast routing, and group policy specification. We then outline several future research directions. MM ulticast enables efficient large-scale content distribution by providing an efficient transport

Multicast is an internetwork service that provides efficient delivery of data from a source to multiple receivers. It reduces the bandwidth requirements of the network and the computational overhead of the host devices. This makes multicast an ideal technology for communication among a large group of participants. Secure group communications involves many service types include teleconferencing, pay TV and realtime delivery of stock quotes.

Abstract | Fingerprinting, watermarking content to identify the recipient, provides a good deterrence to unauthorized duplication and propagation of multimedia streams. This is straightforward in a unicast environment � however, in a multicast environment, inserting a ngerprint atthe source does not provide any security since many receivers will share a common ngerprint. A simple solution would be to ngerprint the data for each user at the source and unicast the di erent streams. We aim to achieve a more scalable solution while maintaining and even increasing the level of security. Toachieve this,wehave developed WHIM, a scalable system that allows multicast contenttobemarked with distinct information for distinct receivers securely. This system introduces two new concepts: 1)generating a watermark based on the receiver's location in a tree overlaying the network and 2)inserting the watermark in the content incrementally as it traverses an overlay network. We propose and evaluate several forms of this architecture and show how it improves scalability while increasing security. I.

In this paper we describe a scheme in which each receiver of a multicast session receives a stream with a different, unique watermark, while still retaining the scalability of multicast. The watermarked streams can be used to trace those users who make unauthorized copies of a stream. The watermarking is enabled by encryption of two slightly different copies of the original stream with a large set of different keys.

Many watermarking techniques have been proposed for digital video and digital broadcast video. In general, they address the seller's or broadcaster's concerns, such as copyright-violation deterrence, copyright-violation detection and copy protection. Some of them provide for data integrity (tamper proofing), which is a shared concern of both subscriber and broadcaster. In all these cases, the watermark generation and embedding is performed or controlled by the seller or broadcaster. Therefore, a broadcaster with malicious intentions could, with manipulation, falsely implicate an innocent subscriber in copyright violation. This could be a major concern for subscribers.

Protection of intellectual property is a critical issue in digital multimedia distribution systems. Cryptographic tools are commonly used for secure delivery of content and access keys to consumers via terrestrial, satellite, cable and Internet transmissions. A third requirement is the distribution of the copyright or usage rights associated with the digital content. The integrity, as opposed to security, of this data is essential to prevent unauthorized modification. Two approaches have been proposed in the open literature: allocating special fields in the transport stream and embedding a watermark into multimedia content. We present two new methods, based on secret sharing, to create channels with guaranteed data integrity.

One of the solutions to deter copyright violations consists of embedding hard to detect watermarks in digital media. Current developments have focused on how to embed watermarks, and on one-to-one exchanges on how to securely convey tagged data to the end consumer. Assuming a large customer base or predistributed media, it may become prohibitively expensive or time consuming to tag each separate copy of data individually before it is delivered to the customer. We present two mechanisms that allow the preparation and distribution of tagged data in a more scalable way than existing approaches. The first one, called hierarchical tagging, is preferable for on-line multi-level distribution, where producer and consumer are not in direct contact, but intermediate agents provide distribution channels and sales platforms. The second method is well suited to pre-produced bulk-media distribution (such as through CDROMs or DVDs), with only small amounts of on-line information being transferred to each consumer. We call it bulk-tagging.

Video is one of the primary media for content dissemination. However its commercialization success depends on the efficiency of the mechanisms guaranteeing the protection of author rights and the flexibility in the introduction of new commercialization models and value added services. Depending on the dissemination infrastructure different approaches are today available providing a certain level of copyright protection. However few of the present models and technologies provide the required flexibility for the future interactive video market. This paper desciribes a video commercialization model which provides a promising approach for flexible video commercialization providing fine grain video protection, dynamic price modification, superdistribution of video productions and unique final consumer identification. It is based in video segmentation, watermarking and encryption and be easily employed for both analog and digital video distribution.