A channel-based key management protocol for IPTV service

This paper presents an idea of channel-based key management protocol for IPTV service. In the proposed paper, an IPTV service provider keeps group keys more than one. The keys are used to encrypt the digital contents. The number of group keys an IPTV service provider, at most, has to keep is 2ⁿ -1. n is the number of channels that the IPTV service provider provides to his/her subscribers. The subscribers are also classified into many groups. A group key is correspondent to and assigned to a specific group. The rekeying operation is triggered whenever a subscriber joins or leaves the group or a periodical update is required. The main contribution of this paper is to help the IPTV service provider easily implement keys´ update and reduce the number of keys each subscriber has to keep and the number of rekeying messages to be sent.