Patent ID: 7269744

Claim:
A machine readable medium that provides instructions, which when executed by at least one processor, cause said processor to perform operations comprising: decrypting a payload of a data block received in a data stream from a protocol-specific device; encrypting the payload of a data block of the data-stream with at least one key, before transmitting the data-stream from a first system to a second system, wherein the first system comprises a protected content exchange (PCX) module, and wherein the second system comprises at least one application decoder module; replacing a portion of said payload with a tag that identifies an at least one decrypting key to said first system, before said transmitting; and setting a flag in a header of the data block that indicates that said payload has said tag, before said transmitting, wherein said processor comprises a protected content exchange (PCX) module configured to process various data stream protocols routed to one or more application decoder modules based on a protocol corresponding to the data block.