Patent ID: 7296154

Claim:
A method comprising: establishing one or more paths of components that are to process and render digital data; receiving encrypted data that is to be processed by the one or more paths, the encrypted data being subject to a license that defines how the encrypted data is to be processed; creating multiple authenticators, wherein the authenticators are configured to authenticate components along the one or more paths, at least one authenticator being created across a device boundary on a remote device, and at least two authenticators being located on a single device; providing a secure communication channel between the authenticators; querying, with the authenticators, individual components of the one or more paths to ascertain which components the queried components pass data to; authenticating with the authenticators, the queried components and the components that the queried components pass data to, in order to establish trusted components, wherein components that are not trusted components may not handle decrypted data; and establishing encryption/decryption keys with multiple Wasted components of the one or more paths for the trusted components to use to encrypt and decrypt data.