Patent Application
20130038425
1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of secured communications. More specifically, one embodiment of the invention relates to a system and method for embedding commands within a message where any embedded command is processed upon confirmation that the message originated from an authenticated electronic device.
2. General Background
For the last decade, major advancements in high-technology have occurred, and such advancements continue to occur at an accelerated pace. As a result, product development cycles have become increasingly shorter over the years, which have posed a number of problems.
For instance, one problem is that, by needing to release products at a greater pace in order to compete in the marketplace, there are times when the released product does not have all of its intended features. Hence, it has become increasingly important to be able to have rudimentary control over an electronic product after release, such as being able to expand and upgrade the electronic product over the Internet.
As an example, in accordance with conventional communications schemes, servers are authorized to only send certain commands for remote control of clients, namely those commands that are provided in accordance with a communication protocol agreed upon by the servers and clients beforehand. For instance, software updates may require a particular protocol to be followed prior to execution of the command, where the command is unable to execute if the protocol cannot be performed.
Likewise, security protections, such as security codes, may be used to prevent unauthorized commands from being utilized. However, these security codes, once broken, expose the device to unauthorized control by a server.
Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:
Various embodiments of the invention relate to a system and method for confirming the authenticity of a remote source transmitting a message with an embedded command originating and performing that command after authentication has been successfully completed. According to one embodiment of the invention, implemented within an electronic device, logic is configured to generate a unique identifier that is used to produce another value referred to as a Personal Identification Number “PIN” code. The PIN code is used to confirm device authentication. Upon detecting a message with an embedded command and determines that the source has been authenticated, the recipient electronic device is configured to process the embedded command.
This system and method may be utilized in a number of capacities. For instance, the system may support software updates where a client electronic device (television) supports Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol “XMPP” (chat feature). A server can be used to push messages with commands for software updates without receiving inquiry messages from the television. The television verifies the PIN code provided by the server, and if compares, runs the command that causes the television to download update software (or patches) to its local storage and restart to install the update software.
Alternatively, the system may require the client electronic device (television) to initiate an inquiry message to a centralized source (call or tech center) that has been previously authenticated. A representative at the centralized source may check the PIN code of the television, and if listed, download history and data from the television. Thereafter, the centralized source sends update software (or patches) to the television for local storage and prompts, by use of an embedded command, the restart of the television to install the update software.
In the following description, certain terminology is used to describe features of the invention. For instance, the term “electronic device” may refer to a device that features one or more electrical components that are adapted to receive and process transmitted information. For instance, an electronic device may include, but is not limited or restricted to a television, a set-top box, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a computer (e.g., mobile, personal, server, mainframe, etc.), a cellular telephone, a video game console, a portable video player, or the like.
The terms “unit” and “logic” are representative of hardware and/or software configured to perform one or more functions. For instance, examples of hardware include, but are not limited or restricted to an integrated circuit such as a processor (e.g., a digital signal processor, microprocessor, application specific integrated circuit, a micro-controller, etc.). Of course, the hardware may be alternatively implemented as a finite state machine, a programmable circuit, or even combinatorial logic.
An example of “software” includes executable code in the form of an application, an applet, a routine or even a series of instructions. The software may be stored in any type of non-transitory machine readable medium such as a programmable circuit, a semiconductor memory device such as volatile memory (e.g., random access memory, etc.) and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., any type of read-only memory “ROM”, flash memory, etc.), a hard drive disk, a portable storage device (e.g., an optical disk, a digital tape, a flash drive, etc.), or the like.
The term “interconnect” is generally defined as an information-carrying pathway for information, where the information may be content such as video, audio, text, displayable images or any combination thereof. An interconnect may be established using any communication medium such as a wired physical medium (e.g., a bus, one or more electrical wires, trace, cable, etc.) or a wireless medium (e.g., air in combination with wireless signaling technology).
Lastly, the term “value” is a series of bits representative of a number or an alphanumeric character string, and a “message” is information normally in a structured format such as a frame, a packet or a cell. The message normally includes a header portion and a payload portion.
While this invention is susceptible to embodiments of many different forms, there is shown in the drawings and will herein be described in detail specific embodiments, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an example of the principles of the invention and not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiments shown and described.
Referring to
Besides digital content, messages with embedded commands may be transmitted from second electronic device 120 to first electronic device 110 without any prior agreement between devices 110 and 120 on the protocol or the commands themselves. This provides greater flexibility than the conventional communication scheme described above, perhaps such flexibility as command-line shells would provide.
These messages are designed to allow a remotely located electronic device (e.g., second electronic device 120) to control the operations of first electronic device 110. Such control may involve altering the operating state of first electronic device (e.g., power-down, power-up, restart, etc.), updating or enhancing the functionality of first electronic device 110 (e.g., software updates, patches, etc.), or the like.
According to one embodiment of the invention, prior to the receipt of digital content, second electronic device 120 is to be authenticated in order to ensure that any subsequently received commands from device 120 are recognized as being from a trusted source. According to one embodiment, this may be accomplished through a registration process set forth in
As shown in
Upon receipt of authentication request message 140, as shown in
Referring now to
More specifically, according to this embodiment of the invention, memory 300 comprises any type of non-volatile memory (e.g., flash, Read Only memory, battery-backed random access memory, etc.) that can persistently store unique identifier 200. Unique identifier 200 may be pre-stored during manufacture of first electronic device 110 or may be uploaded and securely stored after manufacture. As an example, unique identifier 200 may be a manufacturer identification (ID) value exclusively assigned to device 110 by its manufacture. Alternatively, unique identifier 200 may be the MAC address assigned to a network adapter (not shown) for first electronic device 110 or a random value generated internally by a random (or pseudo-random) number generator (not shown) for subsequent storage in memory 300.
PIN generation unit 310 is logic that is adapted to receive unique identifier 200 and perform logical operations on such data that correspond to those above-described logical operations performed by second electronic device 120. For instance, PIN generation unit 310 may be implemented as a controller that is adapted to perform an operation on input data (e.g., unique identifier 200) in accordance with a particular function. This function may include, but is not limited or restricted to any arithmetic function, a hash function (e.g., any version of Secure Hash Algorithm “SHA” such as SHA-1, SHA-2, etc.), or the like.
Upon performing this operation on unique identifier 200, PIN generation unit 310 produces a result 350 (referred to as “PIN#_Internal”). PIN#_Internal 350 is routed to comparison unit 320 that compares this value with PIN#_External 250 received from second electronic device 120. If these values compare, second electronic device 120 has been authenticated, which may be denoted by authentication signal 360. As a result, an external address or identifier for second electronic device 120, such as an Internet Protocol (IP) address, MAC address or the like, is stored within an entry of a table 370 in memory 300 PIN#_External 250 for comparison purposes for future communications of messages with embedded commands as described below.
Referring back to
Referring now to
As shown in
Herein, XML opening tag 510 is used to identify that the XML information constitutes a command. By analyzing and detecting a “command” type of opening tags within message 160, the first electronic device is able to detect that this message 160 includes an embedded command. The XML closing tag 530 is used to denote an end of the command.
The XML element 520 corresponds to information that identifies the particular type of command. These types of commands may include, but are not limited or restricted to power-down command, a power-on command, a software update command that may simply identify to the first electronic device that a downloadable software update is available, or cause the first electronic device to perform a number of operations (e.g. check version of software, check for patch history, check permissions and other attributes, etc.) before the updated software is accessible by the first electronic device.
As further shown in
These and other techniques may be used to detect that a command is embedded within a received message (block 410).
Referring back to
If the source (second electronic device) has been authenticated, the embedded command is extracted from the message and executed (block 430). Otherwise, the embedded command is ignored (path 440).
After execution of the embedded command, a determination is made whether the message features other commands (block 450). If so, the next embedded command is retrieved and executed without further authentication as the source of the message has already been authenticated. This process continues until no further commands are detected within the message. At that time, the process ends.
Referring to
Upon receipt of messages 630, television 610 includes logic that analyzes each of messages 630 to determine if any of such messages includes a command. Upon determining that the message includes an embedded command, logic within television 610 determines if server 600 has been previously. Such authentication may be through value comparisons that assures server 600 is authorized for such communications (e.g. from the same manufacturer as television, television and server are certified by the same entity, etc.).
If server 600 has been authenticated, the embedded command is extracted from the message and executed by logic within television 610. Otherwise, if server 600 has not been authenticated, the embedded command is ignored or the command is temporarily ignored until a registration process is ensued and server 600 is authenticated.
In the foregoing description, the invention is described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the present invention as set forth in the appended claims. The specification and drawings are accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than in a restrictive sense.
