Realizing Massive-Scale Conditional Access Systems Through Attribute-Based Cryptosystems

The enormous growth in the diversity of content services such as IPtv has highlighted the inadequacy of the accompanying content security: existing security mechanisms scale poorly, require complex and often costly dedicated hardware, or fail to meet basic security requirements. New security methods are needed. In this paper, we explore the ability of attribute-based encryption (ABE) to meet the unique performance and security requirements of conditional access systems such as subscription radio and payper-view television. We show through empirical study that costs of ABE make its direct application inappropriate, but present constructions that mitigate its incumbent costs. We develop an extensive simulation that allows us to explore the performance of a number of virtual hardware configurations and construction parameters over workloads developed from real subscription and television audiences. These simulations show that we can securely deliver high quality content to viewerships of the highest rated shows being broadcast today, some in excess of 26,000,000 viewers. It is through these experiments that we expose the viability of not only ABE-based content delivery, but applicability of ABE systems to large-scale distributed systems.