An Efficient Monitoring Method of a Network Protocol for Downloadable CAS

This paper presents an efficient monitoring method of a network protocol for a downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) that can securely transmit conditional access software via a bi-directional communication channel. In order to guarantee a secure channel based on mutual authentication between a DCAS head end server and set-top boxes, DCAS messages are encrypted and digitally signed. Owing to applied cryptographic algorithms, it is impossible to get information from messages directly without additional processing. Through categorizing DCAS messages into several groups, the proposed monitoring method can efficiently parse and trace DCAS messages in real-time. In order to verify the stability and effectiveness of the proposed monitoring method, we implement a DCAS monitoring system capable of capturing and parsing all DCAS messages. The experimental results show that the proposed monitoring method is well designed.