Preventing unauthorized modification or skipping of viewing of advertisements within content

摘要

A method, apparatus, and system are directed towards employing a chain of permission keys obtained during playing of advertisements within content to enable continued playing of the content. A sequence of encoded permission keys are generated with each encoded permission key, except a last permission key, incorporating a scrambling key useable to decode a next encoded permission key within the sequence of encoded permission keys that enables playing of a next portion of the content. If playing of any advertisement within the content is avoided, then access to an associated scrambling key useable to decode a next permission key is prevented, which in turn inhibits playing of a next portion of the content. In another embodiment, a heartbeat analysis may also be performed to monitor if skipping of an advertisement is being attempted, and if so, playing of the content is prevented.

主权项

1. A system configured to manage viewing of advertisements within content, comprising:
processor; and a non-transitory memory storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform steps comprising:
employing a different scrambling key that scrambles each of at least two permission keys;generating at least two encoded permission keys by combining each scrambled permission key with a next scrambling key;marking different portions of at least two advertisements based on different ones of the at least two encoded permission keys;partitioning the content into portions of content separated by at least one of the marked advertisements;providing the partitioned content to a client device with the marked advertisements; andproviding a downloadable client component to the client device, the client component containing instructions that when executed by a processor on the client device cause the processor on the client device to perform steps comprising:
receiving the partitioned content with the marked advertisements;obtaining a first encoded permission key during playing of a first marked advertisement;extracting the next scrambling key from the first encoded permission key;obtaining, during the playing of a second marked advertisement, a second encoded permission key;unscrambling a permission key associated with the second encoded permission key using the next scrambling key; andplaying a subsequent portion of the content using the unscrambled permission key.