Authentication, identification techniques, and secure containers - Baseline technologies

The commercial distribution of multimedia content over the Internet demands high security mechanisms. There is not only the possibility of third persons intercepting the communication, but also the risk of malevolent hackers faking the identity of registered users. This paper describes mechanisms that prevent such attacks. First an overview of cryptographic algorithms is given. After that the terms identification and authentication are defined and examples of techniques and protocols for user and content authentication are given. The next sections give a short overview of connection based security protocols and the secure container technology used in DRM systems. The final section shows some security aspects of client DRM systems.