US 11,144,667 B2Granted

Machine-driven crowd-disambiguation of data resources

AssigneeViaSat, Inc.

InventorsDavid F Lerner, Peter J Lepeska, Douglas C Larrick, Devin R Toth

Life of this patent

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Abstract

Embodiments seek to protect privacy of potentially sensitive client resources in web transactions using crowd-disambiguation. Crowd-disambiguation machines can aggregate information about resources from multiple clients as resource fingerprints, and can use the fingerprints to provide crowd-sourced services in a privacy-protected manner. For example, embodiments can communicate a resource fingerprint as a fully ambiguated resource instance (FARI) and a partially disambiguated resource instance (PDRI). When one (or few) clients communicates the resource fingerprint, the identity of the resource remains obfuscated from the crowd-disambiguation machine. As more clients communicate fingerprints for the same resource (e.g., identified by the matching FARIs), respective, differently generated PDRIs of those fingerprints enable the crowd-disambiguation machine to resolve further portions of the resource, ultimately permitting the resource to be revealed and considered non-private (e.g., for use in hint generation or other crowd-sourced services).

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for crowd-based disambiguation of potentially private data resources in a communications network, the method comprising:

receiving, from a private hinting service on a client side of the communications network, a resource identifier at a crowd-disambiguation machine in association with client consumption of a crowd-sourced application of the crowd-disambiguation machine involving requesting a resource corresponding to the resource identifier;
analyzing a set of non-sensitive resources to determine whether the resource identifier is included in the set of non-sensitive resources;
responsive to determining that the resource identifier is not included in the set of non-sensitive resources:
incrementing a stored tally indicating a quantity of instances of the resource identifier received by the crowd-disambiguation machine from unique client machines;
determining, by the crowd-disambiguation machine, whether the stored tally exceeds a predetermined threshold indicating that the resource is non-sensitive;
adding the resource, by the crowd-disambiguation machine, to the set of non-sensitive resources to generate an updated set of non-sensitive resources usable by the crowd-disambiguation machine in providing the crowd-sourced application in response to the determining that the stored tally exceeds the predetermined threshold;
and
transmitting the updated set of non-sensitive resources to the private hinting service.

5 more elements

A system for crowd-based disambiguation of potentially private data resources in a communications network, the system comprising:

means for receiving, from a private hinting service on a client side of the communications network, a resource identifier at a crowd-disambiguation machine from one of a plurality of client machines in association with client consumption of a crowd-sourced application of the crowd-disambiguation machine involving requesting a resource corresponding to the resource identifier;
means for analyzing a set of non-sensitive resources to determine whether the resource identifier is included in the set of non-sensitive resources;
means for incrementing a stored tally indicating a quantity of instances of the resource identifier received by the crowd-disambiguation machine from unique client machines, the incrementing responsive to determining that the resource identifier is included in the set of non-sensitive resources;
means for determining, by the crowd-disambiguation machine, whether the stored tally exceeds a predetermined threshold indicating that the resource is non-sensitive, the determining responsive to determining that the resource identifier is included in the set of non-sensitive resources;
means for adding the resource, by the crowd-disambiguation machine, to the set of non-sensitive resources to generate an updated set of non-sensitive resources usable by the crowd-disambiguation machine in providing the crowd-sourced application in response to the determining that the stored tally exceeds the predetermined threshold;
and
means for transmitting the updated set of non-sensitive resources to the private hinting service, the transmitting responsive to adding the resource to the set of non-sensitive resources.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/521,064Filed 24 Jul 2019 · continuation
Published: US 2020/0125759 A123 Apr 2020
Granted: 12 Oct 2021
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

G06F 21/6263
Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes: during internet communication, e.g. revealing personal data from cookies
G06F 16/9574
Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation: of access to content, e.g. by caching
G06F 21/6245
To a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database: protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
H04L 47/83
Admission control; Resource allocation: based on usage prediction

Family

PCT/US2015/050021Parent of this continuation · filed 14 Sep 2015
US 2020/0125759 A1Pre-grant publication · published 23 Apr 2020
Application15/758,918Parent of this continuation
US 10,387,676 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2018/0247076 A1Published application
US 11,144,667 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.