Intel Corporation

Richard L Maliszewski

Keith L Shippy

Gary L Graunke

David W Aucsmith

Ajit P Joshi

Joseph M Nardone

Jody L Pfotenhauer

Richard Paul Mangold

Carlos V Rozas

James Paul Held

Lewis V Rothrock

Alan J McPherson

Brendan Traw

James A Moorer

George H Lydecker

Daniel P Baumberger

John Carbajal

Richard T Mangold

Embodiments of apparatuses, methods, and systems for modifying the behavior of a guest installed to run within a VM are disclosed. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes virtualization logic, first storage, second storage, decode logic, and multiplexing logic. The virtualization logic is to provide a mode in which to operate a virtual machine. The first storage is to store a first plurality of micro-instructions to control the apparatus. The second storage is to store a second plurality of micro-instructions to control the apparatus. The decode logic is to decode a macro-instruction into one of a first plurality and a second plurality of micro-instructions. The multiplexing logic is to cause the macro-instruction to be decoded into the second plurality of micro-instructions instead of the first plurality of micro-instructions only when issued from the virtual machine.

Guest-specific microcode

A method, apparatus and system enabling software access to navigational data in a decrypted media stream while protecting stream payloads. In one embodiment, a filter may route an encrypted content stream and associated information to a secure partition having a trusted computing component for decryption. Upon decryption, the trusted computing component may store the decrypted payload of the content in a secure storage location accessible to the trusted computing component. Thereafter, the decrypted navigational header information of the content may be used to navigate to the decrypted content via a trusted component such as a trusted rendering unit in the secure partition.

Method and apparatus for allowing software access to navigational data in a decrypted media stream while protecting stream payloads

Redirecting function calls through a protected environment to effect secure linkage of program modules. In one embodiment, a program module, such as a player application for example, may make function calls to secure functions instead of to insecure operating system (OS) services, thereby deterring attacks on the player's calls to OS services. In one embodiment, the new secure functions provide similar functionality to the replaced OS services. Providing a securely loaded function for calling by a program module in place of calling an insecure OS function includes obtaining object code for the securely loaded function from a signed binary description file, performing signature and integrity verification of the program module using the signed binary description file, loading the object code for the securely loaded function into memory, and updating an address for calling the securely loaded function by the program module.

Method of secure function loading

A data processing device associates a test module with a sequence of instructions, the test module producing a test result by performing a test on a sequence of instructions. In the sequence of instructions, a first instruction comprising a target address is replaced with a second instruction having an instruction address in the sequence, the second instruction to transfer control to the test module. The target address is stored within an encrypted table, and the test module locates the target address in the table and transfers control to the target address when the test result indicates the sequence of instructions may proceed.

Method and apparatus to test an instruction sequence

Providing secure content-based user experience enhancement in a player device for rendering digital content includes accepting encrypted digital content, decrypting the encrypted digital content into decrypted digital content, downsampling the decrypted digital content into downsampled digital content; and processing the downsampled digital content by an enhancement module to provide the user experience enhancement. The system protects content being rendered by a player application even when the content is also sent to an enhancement module such as a plug-in. The original content is protected by only transferring a version of the content to the enhancement module that is downsampled. That is, the original high fidelity, high value content is never transferred to the untrusted enhancement module. Instead, the content is downsampled into a lower fidelity form that it is still useful for the purposes of enhancement module processing, but is not useful or desirable for other purposes (such as normal rendering of the content for enjoyment by the user).

Method of providing secure content-based user experience enhancement within a content protection architecture

Playback of digital multimedia content by a player application may be modified according to title specific parameters. The method includes accessing the digital multimedia content, accessing title specific parameters associated with the digital multimedia content, and processing the digital multimedia content to render the content to a user according to the title specific parameters. The title specific parameters may be stored with the digital multimedia content on a removable storage medium such as a digital versatile disk (DVD) or received from a source over a computer network, satellite, or cable. The title specific parameters may be used to modify at least one of the decoding, decompressing, and downsampling of at least one track or title of the content. In one embodiment, the content is digital audio data in the DVD-Audio format.

Method and apparatus for multimedia playback with title specific parameters

In one apparatus, a number of obfuscated programming instructions are equipped to self-verify whether execution of the obfuscated programming instructions is being observed. In another apparatus, a number of obfuscated programming instruction are equipped to determine whether the apparatus is being operated in a mode that supports single step execution of the obfuscated programming instructions. In yet another apparatus, a number of obfuscated programming instruction are equipped to verify whether an amount of elapsed execution time has exceeded a threshold. In yet another apparatus, a first and a second group of obfuscated programming instruction are provided to implement a first and a second tamper resistant technique respectively, with the first and the second group of programming instructions sharing a storage location for a first and a second key value corresponding to the first and the second tamper resistant technique.

Tamper resistant methods and apparatus

In one apparatus, a number of obfuscated programming instructions is provided to perform integrity verification on a number of other plain text programming instructions. In another apparatus, a number of obfuscated programming instructions is provided to self-verify an invocation of the obfuscated programming instructions is not originated from an intruder.

In one apparatus, a group of plain text and obfuscated cells of programming instructions is provided to implement a descrambler that descrambles scrambled content to generate descrambled content. In another apparatus, a group of plain text and obfuscated cells of programming instructions is provided to implement an authenticator that provides appropriate authentication challenges to a scrambled content provider, and generates appropriate authentication responses to authentication challenges from the scrambled content provider. In yet another apparatus, a group of plain text and obfuscated cells of programming instructions is provided to implement an integrity verifier that performs integrity verification on a decoder. In yet another apparatus, a group of plain text and obfuscated cells of programming instructions is provided to implement a secrets holder that holds a number of secrets associated with playing scrambled contents.

Tamper resistant player for scrambled contents

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method of storing and retrieving data. The method includes performing mutations of a cell array in a mutation cycle until a storage phase is reached. The data is stored in storage regions of the cell array at the storage phase. The cell array is mutated through additional phases and the data stored in the cell array during the storage phase and is encrypted by the mutations through the additional phases. In response to a retrieval request, mutations continue until a retrieval phase is reached and the data is decrypted. In various embodiments, the invention includes a computer-readable medium, a binary structure, a system, and a method of creating a cell array.

Cell array providing non-persistent secret storage through a mutation

A method and apparatus to divide a signed integer by a constant power of two using conditionally-executed instructions to choose between a first result in the event that the dividend is a negative signed integer and a second result in the event that the dividend is a positive signed integer, wherein values associated with the first result and the second result are generated simultaneously.

Method and apparatus for providing a signed integer divide by a power of

Secure distribution of a private key to a user's application program (also called a 'trusted player' such as a DVD player or CD-ROM player) with conditional access based on verification of the trusted player's integrity and authenticity is provided. Once validated, the trusted player uses the private key to decrypt encrypted digital content. The private key is dynamically generated, associated with specific digital content, and communicated in real-time from a server to the trusted player in a secure manner, thereby controlling access to encrypted digital content. The key is wrapped into an executable tamper resistant key module in which the key can only be used by the right trusted player as determined by the server based on user requests and payment. The key module plugs in to the trusted player and executes to validate the player and decrypt the content. The integrity of the trusted player is correlated to its ability to perform a cryptographic operation using an asymmetric key pair in a manner that is tamper resistant, thereby preventing an unencrypted copy of digital content to be made.

Method for securely distributing a conditional use private key to a

Authenticating a remote process operating in an address space different than that of a local process includes the steps of creating, by the local process, a tamper resistant module containing a temporary secret, sending the tamper resistant module and a challenge from the local process to the remote process, executing the tamper resistant module by the remote process and recovering the secret when the integrity of the remote process is verified by the tamper resistant module, encoding the challenge using the secret to produce a response, sending the response to the local process, and decoding the response by the local process. Optionally, the tamper resistant module includes a request for information from the second process and the response includes the answer to the request for information.

Growing community of inventors

Forest Grove, OR, United States of America

Richard L Maliszewski