Towards an open, trusted digital rights management platform

Abstract

Trusted computing has received criticism from those who fear it will be used by influential market forces to exert power over the software used on consumer platforms. This paper describes an open architecture for digital rights management (DRM) enforcement on trusted computing platforms that empowers the consumer to select their operating-system and applications, including open-source options, without weakening the strength of the security functions. A key component in the architecture is a security manager that enforces mandatory access controls on shared devices, restricted information flows between virtual machines, and DRM policy on protected objects. The paper describes two use-cases: a DRM scenario with protected media content and remote home-working on sensitive medical data.