| 摘要 |
An arrangement is disclosed for providing an account identifier from a bi lling system to a controller that is disposed at the headend (705) of a wide area network ("WAN") (712) that supports a media content distribution servi ce. In illustrative examples, the WAN (712) is a broadband network to which one or more terminal devices (732, 735X) such as STBs are coupled. The billi ng system (743) generates a unique household handle ("HHH"), to identify a p articular set of STBs that are associated with a subscriber to the service, which is transmitted to the controller. The controller (719) uses the HHH to prepare a terminal association identifier ("TAI") that is distributed to th e associated STBs. An application programming interface ("API") resident on each STB is arranged to accept input parameters from one or more application s that run on the STB. The input parameter is typically concatenated with th e stored TAI and input to a hashing algorithm. The resultant hashed value is returned to an application and is usable as password to secure a local area network to which the STBs are coupled.
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