Method and apparatus for an adapter card providing conditional access in a communication system
AssigneeHughes Electronics Corporation
InventorsDouglas M. Dillon, Robert D. Cassagnol
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for an adapter card, for use in a computer, to provide conditional access by the computer to incoming data streams while maintaining the security of information by maintaining a listing of addresses corresponding to data streams which the computer is authorized to receive, receiving and determining the address of a frame, determining whether the frame address matches an address maintained in an Access Table, and processing and transmitting only those frames of data streams which the computer is authorized to receive.
Claims30
A method for an adapter card, for use in a computer, to provide conditional access by the computer to input data streams, wherein a data stream is comprised of at least one frame and each frame includes an address identifying the data stream, comprising the steps of:
- maintaining an Access Table, wherein each table entry includes an address field for storing an address corresponding to a data stream which the computer is authorized to receive;
- receiving a frame;
- determining the address from the frame;
- determining whether the frame address matches an address maintained in the Access Table;
- discarding the frame if a match is not found;
- and
- processing and transmitting the frame to the computer through a bus interface if a match is found.
A method for an adapter card for use in a computer, to process input data streams, wherein a data stream is comprised of at least one frame, for conditional access by the computer, and to process input data transmitted from the computer, comprising the steps of:
- maintaining an Access Table, wherein each table entry includes an address field for storing an address corresponding to a data stream which the computer is authorized to receive;
- receiving input data;
- determining whether the input data contains data stream frames or computer data, wherein
- if the input data contains data stream frames, for each frame:
- determining an address of the frame;
- and
- determining whether the frame address matches an address maintained in the Access Table;
- discarding the frame if a match is not found;
- and
- processing the frame into output data if a match is found;
- and wherein
- if the input data contains computer data, processing the computer data into output data;
- and
- transmitting the output data to the computer via a bus interface.
An adapter card for use in a computer, for providing conditional access by the computer to input data including data streams, wherein each data stream is comprised of at least one frame and each frame includes an address identifying the data stream, comprising:
- a receiver for receiving a data stream frame;
- an Access Table, wherein each table entry includes an address field for storing an address corresponding to a data stream which the computer is authorized to receive;
- an integrated filter/crypto (IFC) block for determining an address of the received frame and determining whether the frame address matches an address maintained in the Access Table, wherein if a match is not found, the IFC block discards the frame, and if a match is found, the IFC block processes the frame into output data;
- and
- a bus interface for transmitting the output data to the computer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.