Ascertaining network devices used with anonymous identifiers
AssigneeT-Mobile USA, Inc.
InventorsRami Al-Kabra, Prem Kumar Bodiga, Noah Dahlstrom, Ruchir Sinha, Jonathan Morrow, Aaron Drake, Chuong Phan
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Abstract
Techniques for identifying certain types of network activity are disclosed, including parsing network traffic to automatically recognize anonymous identifiers. Such techniques may be used to identify and eliminate malicious and/or undesirable network traffic, and to identify topics relevant to a user of a particular network device so that communications to such a user are more likely to relate to a topic of interest to the user.
Claims20
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- identifying a character string in a URL transmitted by a client device as a potential anonymous identifier of the client device;
- searching a first database for portions of URL query strings that determine whether to verify the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier;
- finding URL query string portions in the database that determine whether to verify the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier;
- and
- verifying the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier in response to finding a URL query string portion that verifies the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier.
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media containing executable instructions that, if executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
- identifying a character string in a URL transmitted by a client device as a potential anonymous identifier of the client device;
- searching a first database for portions of URL query strings that determine whether to verify the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier
- finding URL query string portions in the database that determine whether to verify the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier;
- and
- verifying the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier in response to finding a URL query string portion that verifies the potential anonymous identifier as an actual anonymous identifier.
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- receiving a URL transmitted by a client device over a telecommunication network;
- identifying a character string in a key/value pair in the URL transmitted by the client device over the telecommunication network that matches a predetermined anonymous identifier format as a potential anonymous identifier;
- associating the potential anonymous identifier with a first device identifier that uniquely identifies the client device;
- identifying a subject from one or more URL navigated to by the client device;
- associating the subject with the first device identifier;
- identifying content related to the subject;
- and
- associating the content related to the subject with the first device identifier, the potential anonymous identifier, or both.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.