How Geo-Encryption Makes Copyright Protection Global - ' Applying Geo'
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Real-World Geo-Encryption
Denning's pull-no-punches manner and intellectual curiosity remain pretty much intact, whether she's chairing the Georgetown Institute for Information Assurance—a security research group that she founded—or sitting on the new White House Advisory Group on Homeland Security. Just ask Seiler and Glick.
Last year, when the pair tracked down Denning—her name appeared on a 1998 patent for location-based authentication—they fully expected her to fawn over their idea to use her geo-encryption technology to enable the digital distribution of movies and films. "I remember thinking that Napster is going to kill the entertainment business, and isn't there some way to encrypt by location?" says Seiler.
But Denning promptly burst their bubble. She peppered Seiler and Glick with doubts over whether geo-encryption would be tamperproof in all applications. "Barry and I were devastated," recalls Seiler. Denning, nonetheless, decided to join them as a partner. Though remaining at Georgetown full-time, she is the "go-to" person to work out the kinks in the technology—and to brainstorm with Seiler and Glick to develop broader applications for it.
Denning says her initial doubts only whetted her intellectual curiosity—and
her desire to apply what she'd dreamed up in the lab. "I find the challenge of dynamically encrypting streams of video or classified data by using GPS satellites intellectually intriguing," Denning says. After months of chipping away at the project, GeoCodex now has venture capital backers for three joint ventures to safeguard entertainment broadcasts, defend classified data and protect medical records.
Specifically for Hollywood, Denning has figured out how studios can interact directly with movie houses or home-bound video-on-demand customers. For example, Paramount Studios could encrypt its movies for, say, the St. Louis area—providing the material to the video-on-demand distributor without giving that distributor the decoding key. Paramount could manipulate the key directly from its offices in Hollywood, ensuring that only those who subscribe to the service get it. Seiler and Glick hope their company's $10 GeoCodex chip can be installed on HDTV sets. But they're also working with SRA International Inc., a Fairfax, Va., contractor, on national security applications.
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