Verimatrix’s new CTO takes security across screens

Television security vendor Verimatrix brought on former Motorola (NYSE:MOT) Homes and Networks Mobility executive Petr Peterka this week to act as its new Chief Technology Officer and help the company adapt to the rapidly changing security needs of today’s networks. Peterka has an extensive background in conditional access (CA) and digital rights management (DRM) across various standards and devices. He spoke with Connected Planet about how operators can adapt security to new forms of content, new devices and new networks.

On the network changes driving today’s security needs: We’re moving into an era which changes the way we consume content. TV everywhere, anytime, on any device is a phrase that’s been abused over time, but I really think that people want to consume on their own time in a place they want to and on a device that is most suitable to at that point in time. They also want unrestricted access to content from many different sources. They don’t want to be locked into a single content or service provider. This means that operators must find a way to enable these new features for their existing customers. They have to take advantage of these new technologies and embrace them.

On learning from the music industry: Music labels were initially fighting online and digital distribution and look what happened. Video or TV providers have a unique chance of learning from history and using it to their advantage. It will be a win-win situation for content owners, service providers and all us customers.

On why IP raises the threat level: IPTV has shown very successfully that two-way networks over IP protocols change the threat model and the tools we have to defend the content against unauthorized behavior. When we know when a particular device is asking for what content and how often, that gives us much more feedback on what’s really happening in the network. As content is also being distributed to devices over the Internet, where those devices no longer have hardware security, new techniques have been developed such as key transformations and wide-box cryptography and code obfuscation in general. A lot of these techniques can be embraced by traditional pay TV operators who are changing their networks to two-way, IP-enabled. That gives them the power and flexibility to add new services and address new devices and new distribution models.

On another abused term, OTT: It means many different things for different people, but it’s absolutely essentially for [operators] to embrace the new trends and take advantage of their existing subscriber base, their brand name and the loyalty of their customers to extend their services by addressing more devices, not just the set-top box and TV, allowing their content to flow not only their own managed networks, but also off-net, through unmanaged networks to other devices. But also, be able to bring in additional content so the user really has no need to go anywhere else.

On new forms of interactivity: The challenge here is navigation through content. There is so much content available today that people are struggling with finding what they really enjoy. Providing a consistent user interface and ease of finding relevant content is a crucial feature of these new services. I think today people are exploring, jumping from one Web site to another. Traditional service providers have a unique chance to take advantage of it.

On the importance of standards: Standards are a very important aspect of what we do. If you don’t comply with standards or integrate your technology with standard interfaces, you’ll find yourself in isolation. None of our customers really wanted isolated, proprietary components in their networks, so we are very active in DVB and Open IPTV Forum, DECE, Cable Labs, DNLA – these are all very important standards to us.

On one of the most important kinds of security: We differentiate from content protection and revenue security. If you can provide the tools and technology and lock it up in a safe so it’s absolutely secure but you aren’t going to sell any, you will be out of business very soon. We provide the tools that enable monetization of content not only for content owners, but also service providers – minimizing the cost of content delivery by minimizing piracy or unauthorized access. Maximizing the revenue they can bring is our goal.