Patent ID: 7293178

Claim:
A method comprising: decrypting encrypted data that resides on one or more memory surfaces established on a video card, said act of decrypting being performed under the influence of a cryptographic processor that resides on the video card, said act of decrypting taking place only when an operation is to be performed on the data by a graphics processor unit (GPU) that resides on the video card and is separate from the cryptographic processor; performing an operation on the decrypted data using the GPU to provide resultant data; re-encrypting, under the influence of the cryptographic processor, the resultant data; and writing the encrypted resultant data to a memory surface associated with the video card, wherein: a trusted software component establishes the one or more memory surfaces on the video card and negotiates one or more keys with the cryptographic processor to associate each of the one or more memory surfaces with at least one unique key; and the cryptographic processor distributes the negotiated one or more keys to cryptographic hardware of the GPU which uses the keys to perform the acts of decrypting and re-encrypting.