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US 7,065,651 B2Granted
Secure video card methods and systems
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorGlenn F. Evans
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and systems for protecting data that is intended for use and processed on video or graphics cards are described. In various embodiments, data that is intended for use by a video card can be encrypted such that any time the data is provided onto a bus (e.g. a PCI or AGP bus) between the video card and the computer system, the data is encrypted. For example, when data is moved from memory on the video card to the system's memory (e.g. when it is mapped to the system's physical memory) and vice versa, the data is in encrypted form and thus protected.
Claims9
A method comprising:
- providing one or more key pairs, individual key pairs comprising an encryption key that can be used to encrypt data and a decryption key that can be used to decrypt data encrypted with the encryption key;
- associating individual key pairs with individual protected portions of memory that comprise part of a video card memory, wherein the video card memory includes unprotected portions of memory that are not associated with individual key pairs;
- and
- said act of associating comprises defining a table on the video card, the table having individual entries that associates individual key pairs with individual protected portions of the memory.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- defining a table on a video card, the table having individual entries that associate individual key pairs with individual protected portions of video card memory;
- reading data from one or more protected portions of memory on the video card, wherein the video card has individual unprotected portions of memory;
- recording key pairs associated with the protected memory portions from which the data was read;
- operating on the data read from the one or more protected portions of the memory to provide output data;
- ascertaining whether the key pairs associated with the protected memory portions from which the data was read are equivalent to a key pair associated with a protected video memory portion that is to serve as a destination for the output data;
- and
- if the key pairs are equivalent, providing the output data into the destination protected video memory portion.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.