Encrypted key exchange: password-based protocols secure against dictionary attacks

Systems and Methods for Secure Transaction Management and Electronic Rights Protection

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem, wherein it is impossible for an electronic content information provider to provide commercially secure and effective method, for a configurable general-purpose electronic commercial transaction/distribution control system. SOLUTION: In this system, having at least one protected processing environment for safely controlling at least one portion of decoding of digital information, a secure content distribution method comprises a process for encapsulating digital information in one or more digital containers; a process for encrypting at least a portion of digital information; a process for associating at least partially secure control information for managing interactions with encrypted digital information and/or digital container; a process for delivering one or more digital containers to a digital information user; and a process for using a protected processing environment, for safely controlling at least a portion of the decoding of the digital information. COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Authenticated key exchange secure against dictionary attacks

Abstract: Password-based protocols for authenticated key exchange (AKE) are designed to work despite the use of passwords drawn from a space so small that an adversary might well enumerate, off line, all possible passwords. While several such protocols have been suggested, the underlying theory has been lagging. We begin by defining a model for this problem, one rich enough to deal with password guessing, forward secrecy, server compromise, and loss of session keys. The one model can be used to define various goals. We take AKE (with "implicit" authentication) as the "basic" goal, and we give definitions for it, and for entity-authentication goals as well. Then we prove correctness for the idea at the center of the Encrypted Key-Exchange (EKE) protocol of Bellovin and Merritt: we prove security, in an ideal-cipher model, of the two-flow protocol at the core of EKE.

Trusted and secure techniques, systems and methods for item delivery and execution

Abstract: Documents and other items can be delivered electronically from sender to recipient with a level of trustedness approaching or exceeding that provided by a personal document courier. A trusted electronic go-between can validate, witness and/or archive transactions while, in some cases, actively participating in or directing the transaction. Printed or imaged documents can be marked using handwritten signature images, seal images, electronic fingerprinting, watermarking, and/or steganography. Electronic commercial transactions and transmissions take place in a reliable, “trusted” virtual distribution environment that provides significant efficiency and cost savings benefits to users in addition to providing an extremely high degree of confidence and trustedness. The systems and techniques have many uses including but not limited to secure document delivery, execution of legal documents, and electronic data interchange (EDI).

Steganographic techniques for securely delivering electronic digital rights management control information over insecure communication channels

Abstract: Electronic steganographic techniques can be used to encode a rights management control signal onto an information signal carried over an insecure communications channel. Steganographic techniques ensure that the digital control information is substantially invisibly and substantially indelibly carried by the information signal. These techniques can provide end-to-end rights management protection of an information signal irrespective of transformations between analog and digital. An electronic appliance can recover the control information and use it for electronic rights management to provide compatibility with a Virtual Distribution Environment. In one example, the system encodes low data rate pointers within high bandwidth time periods of the content signal to improve overall control information read/seek times.

Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability

Abstract: A plurality of computer nodes communicate using seemingly random Internet Protocol source and destination addresses. Data packets matching criteria defined by a moving window of valid addresses are accepted for further processing, while those that do not meet the criteria are quickly rejected. Improvements to the basic design include (1) a load balancer that distributes packets across different transmission paths according to transmission path quality; (2) a DNS proxy server that transparently creates a virtual private network in response to a domain name inquiry; (3) a large-to-small link bandwidth management feature that prevents denial-of-service attacks at system chokepoints; (4) a traffic limiter that regulates incoming packets by limiting the rate at which a transmitter can be synchronized with a receiver; and (5) a signaling synchronizer that allows a large number of nodes to communicate with a central node by partitioning the communication function between two separate entities.