Hearing instrument with an authentication protocol

Abstract

A hearing instrument includes: a radio for reception of a broadcasted message; an authenticator configured for authentication of a transmitter of the broadcasted message; and a receiver configured for converting the broadcasted message into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a user of the hearing instrument upon successful authentication of the transmitter of the broadcasted message.

Claims

1. A hearing instrument comprising: a hearing loss processing unit; a radio configured to receive an audio message from a source; an authenticator coupled to the hearing loss processing unit; and a receiver configured for converting the audio message into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a user of the hearing instrument; wherein the radio is configured to receive an additional audio message from the source, and wherein the authenticator is configured to individually authenticate the audio message and the additional audio message by performing multiple authentications respectively for the audio message and the additional message.

2. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the hearing instrument is further configured for muting at least one other signal received by the hearing instrument upon successful authentication of the audio message.

3. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, further comprising a mixer configured for mixing the audio message with at least one other signal received by the hearing instrument to obtain a mixed output upon successful authentication of the audio message, wherein the receiver is configured for converting the mixed output into the acoustic signal for transmission towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument.

4. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the hearing instrument is further configured for ignoring the audio message upon failed authentication of the audio message.

5. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, further comprising a mixer configured for mixing the audio message and the additional audio message to obtain a mixed output upon successful authentication of the audio message and the additional audio message, wherein the audio message and the additional audio message are received simultaneously by the hearing instrument, and wherein the receiver is configured for converting the mixed output into the acoustic signal for transmission towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument.

6. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the additional audio message that is received during transmission of the acoustic signal towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument, and wherein the hearing instrument further comprises a medium configured to store the additional audio message.

7. The hearing instrument according to claim 6, wherein the receiver is configured for converting the stored additional audio message into another acoustic signal for transmission towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument.

8. The hearing instrument according to claim 7, wherein the audio message and the additional audio message are converted into the respective acoustic signals for transmission towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument in an order in which they are received by the hearing instrument.

9. The hearing instrument according to claim 7, wherein the audio message and the additional audio message are converted into the respective acoustic signals for transmission towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument in an order of priority.

10. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the authenticator is configured for verifying an electronic signature included in the audio message.

11. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the authenticator is configured for decrypting an encrypted message included in the audio message for authentication of the audio message.

12. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, wherein the authenticator is configured for decoding a hash code included in the audio message.

13. The hearing instrument according to claim 1, further comprising a mixer, wherein the authenticator is coupled indirectly to the hearing loss processing unit via the mixer.

14. The hearing instrument of claim 1, wherein the audio message comprises at least a part of a public announcement.

15. The hearing instrument of claim 1, wherein the multiple authentications comprise multiple message-based authentications.

16. A method performed by a hearing instrument, comprising: receiving, by the hearing instrument, an audio message and a signature from a source, wherein the signature identifies a transmitter of the audio message, the hearing instrument comprising a hearing loss processing unit; authenticating, using an authenticator, the audio message based on the signature, the authenticator coupled to the hearing loss processing unit; and converting the audio message into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a human; wherein the method further comprises receiving an additional audio message from the source, and authenticating the additional message; wherein the audio message and the additional audio message are individually authenticated by the authenticator performing multiple authentications respectively for the audio message and the additional message.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein the signature is encrypted when received by the hearing instrument, and the act of authenticating comprises decrypting the encrypted signature.

18. The method according to claim 16, wherein the authenticator is coupled indirectly to the hearing loss processing unit via a mixer.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the audio message comprises at least a part of a public announcement.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the multiple authentications comprise multiple message-based authentications.

21. A system comprising: a transmitter configured for transmitting an audio message and an additional audio message, the transmitter comprising an encoder configured for encoding a signature identifying the transmitter for transmission together with message to be transmitted, and a hearing instrument comprising: a hearing loss processing unit; a radio for reception of the audio message and the additional audio message, and an authenticator coupled to the hearing loss processing unit, wherein the hearing instrument is configured for converting the audio message into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a user of the hearing instrument; and wherein the authenticator is configured to individually authenticate the audio message and the additional audio message by performing multiple authentications respectively for the audio message and the additional message.

22. The system according to claim 21, wherein the authenticator is coupled indirectly to the hearing loss processing unit via a mixer.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the audio message comprises at least a part of a public announcement.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the multiple authentications comprise multiple message-based authentications.

25. A hearing instrument comprising: a hearing loss processing unit; a radio for reception of messages from one or more sources; an authenticator coupled to the hearing loss processing unit; and a receiver configured for converting at least one of the messages into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a user of the hearing instrument; wherein the authenticator is configured to perform multiple authentications respectively for the messages.

26. The hearing instrument of claim 25, wherein the at least one of the messages comprises at least a part of a public announcement.

27. The hearing instrument of claim 25, wherein the authenticator is configured to verify an electronic signature in the at least one of the messages.

28. The hearing instrument of claim 25, wherein the authenticator is configured to perform message-based authentication such that the messages received by the hearing instrument are individually processed for authentication.

29. A hearing instrument comprising: a hearing loss processing unit; a radio for reception of messages from one or more sources; an authenticator coupled to the hearing loss processing unit; and a receiver configured for converting at least one of the messages into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of a user of the hearing instrument; wherein the authenticator is configured to individually process the messages received by the hearing instrument for multiple authentications of the respective messages.

30. The hearing instrument of claim 29, wherein the at least one of the messages comprises at least a part of a public announcement.

31. The hearing instrument of claim 29, wherein the authenticator is configured to verify an electronic signature in the at least one of the messages.

32. The hearing instrument of claim 29, wherein the authenticator is configured to perform multiple authentications respectively for the messages based on signatures in the respective messages.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) The drawings illustrate the design and utility of various features described herein, in which similar elements are referred to by common reference numerals. These drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. In order to better appreciate how the above-recited and other advantages and objects are obtained, a more particular description will be rendered, which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. These drawings depict only exemplary features and are not therefore to be considered limiting in the scope of the claims.

(2) FIG. 1 schematically illustrates electronic circuitry of the new hearing instrument,

(3) FIG. 2 schematically illustrates operation of the authenticator utilizing message authentication codes, and

(4) FIG. 3 schematically illustrates operation of the authenticator utilizing digital certificates.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

(5) Various features are described hereinafter with reference to the figures. It should be noted that the figures are not drawn to scale and that the elements of similar structures or functions are represented by like reference numerals throughout the figures. It should be noted that the figures are only intended to facilitate the description of the features. They are not intended as an exhaustive description of the claimed invention or as a limitation on the scope of the claimed invention. In addition, an illustrated feature needs not have all the aspects or advantages shown. An aspect or an advantage described in conjunction with a particular feature is not necessarily limited to that feature and can be practiced in any other features even if not so illustrated, or if not so explicitly described.

(6) The new method and hearing instrument will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which various examples of the new method and hearing instrument are illustrated. The new method and hearing instrument according to the appended claims may, however, be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein.

(7) It should be noted that the accompanying drawings are schematic and simplified for clarity, and they merely show details which are essential to the understanding of the new method and hearing instrument, while other details have been left out.

(8) Like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout. Like elements will, thus, not be described in detail with respect to the description of each figure.

(9) FIG. 1 schematically illustrates exemplary hearing instrument circuitry 10 of the new hearing instrument. The illustrated new hearing instrument is a hearing aid that may be of any suitable mechanical design, e.g. to be worn in the ear canal, or partly in the ear canal, behind the ear or in the concha, such as the well-known types: BTE, ITE, ITC, CIC, etc.

(10) The illustrated hearing instrument circuitry 10 comprises a front microphone 12 and a rear microphone 14 for conversion of an acoustic sound signal from the surroundings into corresponding microphone audio signals 16, 18 output by the microphones 14, 16. The microphone audio signals 16, 18 are digitized in respective A/D converters 20, 22 for conversion of the respective microphone audio signals 16, 18 into respective digital microphone audio signals 24, 26 that are optionally pre-filtered (pre-filters not shown) and combined in signal combiner 28, for example for formation of a digital microphone audio signal 30 with directionality as is well-known in the art of hearing instruments. The digital microphone audio signal 30 is input to the mixer 32 configured to output a weighted sum 34 of signals input to the mixer 32. The mixer output 34 is input to a hearing loss processor 36 configured to generate a hearing loss compensated output signal 38 based on the mixer output 34. The hearing loss compensated output signal 38 is input to a receiver 40 for conversion into acoustic sound for transmission towards an eardrum (not shown) of a user of the hearing instrument.

(11) The illustrated hearing instrument circuitry 10 is further configured to receive digital audio from various transmitters, such as mobile phones, radios, media players, companion microphones, broadcasting systems, such as in a public place, e.g. in a church, an auditorium, a theatre, a cinema, etc., public address systems, such as in a railway station, an airport, a shopping mall, etc., etc.

(12) In the illustrated example, digital audio, including broadcasted spoken messages, is transmitted wirelessly to the hearing instrument and received by the hearing instrument antenna 42 connected to a radio receiver 44. The radio receiver retrieves the digital data 46 from the received radio signal, including the digital audio, possible transmitter identifiers, possible network control signals, etc. Signal extractor 48 extracts the digital audio 50 from the received digital data 46 and forwards the digital audio 50 to the mixer 32. The digital audio 50 may include audio from a plurality of sources and thus, the digital audio 50 may form a plurality of input signals for the mixer 32, one input signal for each source of audio.

(13) As further explained below, digital data of the broadcasted message also contains data 52 relating to the identity of the transmitter of the broadcasted message. The signal extractor 48 extracts these data 52 from the digital data and forwards them to authenticator 54 that is configured to authenticate the transmitter of the broadcasted message as will be further explained below. Output authentication signal 56 forms a control input to the mixer 32 for control of the weights of the sum of mixer input signals.

(14) In the event that the transmitter of the broadcasted message cannot be authenticated, the corresponding weight is set to zero in the mixer 32 so that the broadcasted message 62 is not transmitted to the user; rather the broadcasted message 62 is ignored.

(15) In the event that the transmitter of the broadcasted message is authenticated, the broadcasted message is transmitted to the user while the other signals are attenuated during transmission of the broadcasted message. The other signals may also be muted. The user may enter a command through a user interface of the hearing instrument of a type well-known in the art, controlling whether the other signals are muted or attenuated.

(16) The hearing instrument may simultaneously receive more than one authenticated broadcasted message; i.e. one or more broadcasted messages may be received during ongoing reception of a previous broadcasted message, whereby more than one authenticated broadcasted message may overlap fully or partly in time.

(17) Such a situation may be handled in various ways. For example, broadcasted messages may have assigned priorities and may be transmitted together with information on the priority, e.g. an integer, e.g. larger than or equal to 1, e.g. the lower the integer, the higher the priority. Alarm messages may for example have the highest priority, while traffic announcements may have the second highest priority, and possible commercials may have the lowest priority.

(18) Successfully authenticated broadcasted messages may be handled by the mixer 32 as separate inputs like the other inputs to the mixer, whereby the mixer includes the individual broadcasted messages in the weighted sum of inputs output to the processor 36, whereby the broadcasted messages are transmitted to the user with substantially unchanged timing with relation to each other.

(19) Alternatively, successfully authenticated broadcasted messages may be transmitted to the hearing instrument user one at the time.

(20) The mixer 32 may have one or more media (e.g., one or more memories) for storage of broadcasted messages received during ongoing reception of a previous broadcasted message. A medium may be a non-transitory medium in some embodiments. Stored broadcasted messages may then be input to the mixer subsequent to finalized output of the previous broadcasted message of the mixer 32 in the same order in which they have been received by the hearing instrument; or, in order of priority, for inclusion in the output of the mixer 32 provided that the broadcasted message in question is successfully authenticated.

(21) The hearing instrument may be configured to always mute one or more other signals received by the hearing instrument during transmission of a broadcasted message of highest priority towards the eardrum of the user of the hearing instrument.

(22) FIG. 2 illustrates exemplary principles of operation of the authenticator 54 shown in FIG. 1. The transmitter 60 of broadcasted messages 62 may emit aural messages, such as departure announcements in an airport. The broadcasted message 62 is transmitted wirelessly and in digital form to a plurality of receivers. The message 62 is illustrated in digital form in FIG. 2. A message authentication algorithm 64 is used to calculate a message authentication code (MAC) 66 from the digitized message 62 in order to authenticate the transmitter 60 of the message 62 and thereby reduce the risk of spoofing. The MAC algorithm 64 implements a cryptographic hash function having a private key as one input and a message of arbitrary length as another input. The MAC algorithm 64 outputs a MAC 66, for example as specified in the various existing standards, such as ISO/IEC 9797-1 and -2 that define MAC algorithms.

(23) The message 62 and the MAC 66 are then transmitted together wirelessly as indicated at 68 to various receivers, one of which resides in one of the new hearing instruments. As illustrated by process 70, the authenticator 54 of the new hearing instrument inputs the received message 62 to the same MAC algorithm 64 as used by the transmitter 60 and uses the same private key to calculate a MAC 72 in the authenticator 54. The authenticator 54 then compares the transmitted MAC 66 to the MAC 72 calculated in the authenticator 54, and If the two MACs are identical, the transmitter 60 of the broadcasted message 62 is authenticated, and so is the message 62, since the private keys and the messages input to the MAC algorithms 64, respectively, have to be identical in order to generate identical MAC codes 66, 72.

(24) The output 56 of the authenticator 54 is used to control the weights of the mixer 32 in response to the result of the authentication process as already explained with reference to FIG. 1.

(25) The authentication process illustrated in principle in FIG. 2 is relatively simple and suitable for implementation in a hearing instrument. The private key has to be distributed to all possible receivers of broadcasted messages from the transmitter in question. Obviously, the distribution of the private key has to be performed with care, since anyone in possession of the private key will be able to generate messages that will be successfully authenticated in the new hearing instruments.

(26) FIG. 3 illustrates another exemplary principle of operation of the authenticator 54 shown in FIG. 1 in which the private key is only in possession of the authentic transmitter.

(27) As in FIG. 2, the transmitter 80 of broadcasted messages 82 may emit aural messages, such as departure announcements in an airport. The broadcasted message 82 is transmitted wirelessly and in digital form to a plurality of receivers. The message 82 is illustrated in digital form in FIG. 3.

(28) In FIG. 3, the message 82 is authenticated using an asymmetric encryption scheme, e.g. a digital signature scheme, with a key pair in which one key is the private key that is in possession of the transmitter 80 to be authenticated. The private key is used to encrypt the message 82 into a digital signature 88. The other key is a public key that is distributed to the intended receivers of messages broadcasted by the transmitter 80 and used to decrypt the digital signature for authentication.

(29) A hashing algorithm 84 calculates a hash code from the digital message 82 and outputs the hash code to an encryption algorithm 86 that uses the private key to encrypt the hash code into a digital signature 88 in order to authenticate the transmitter 80 of the message 82 and thereby reduce the risk of spoofing.

(30) The message 82 and the digital signature 88 are then transmitted together wirelessly as indicated at 90 to various receivers, one of which resides in one of the new hearing instruments. As illustrated by process 92, the authenticator 54 of the new hearing instrument inputs the received message 82 to the same hashing function 84 as used by the transmitter 80 to calculate a hash code 94 in the authenticator 54. Further, the authenticator 54 uses decryption algorithm 96 with the public key to decrypt the digital signature 88 into the hash code 98. The authenticator 54 then compares the hash code 94 with the hash code 98, and if the hash codes 94, 98 are identical, the transmitter 80 of the broadcasted message 82 is authenticated, and so is the message 82, since the private key has to be used in order for the public key to decrypt the digital signature 88 into the correct hash code 98, and the received and transmitted messages have to be identical for the hashing algorithm 84 to output the same hash code. The output 56 of the authenticator 54 is used to control the weights of the mixer 32 in response to the result of the authentication process as already explained with reference to FIG. 1.

(31) The authentication scheme of FIG. 3 is somewhat more complex than the authentication scheme of FIG. 2; however the authentication scheme of FIG. 3 does not require distribution of a private key.

(32) Although particular features have been shown and described, it will be understood that they are not intended to limit the claimed invention, and it will be made obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention. The specification and drawings are, accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense. The claimed invention is intended to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents.