Document meta-data repository

• US 10,411,887 B2
• Filed: 11/27/2016
• Issued: 09/10/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ESI Laboratory, LLC
• Original Assignee: ESI Laboratory, LLC
• Inventors: Will, Michael Alistair
• Primary Examiner(s): Revak, Christopher A
• Application Number:
  US15/361,440
• Publication Number:
  US 20170085376A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,017 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0245 Filtering by information in the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1408 by monitoring network traffic monitoring network traffic per se H04L43/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0861 Generation of secret information including derivation or calculation of cryptographic keys or passwords

Abstract

A computer based method of protecting sensitive documents is provided, the method comprising identifying a first document, generating a registration key associated with the first document, identifying a second document, generating a production key associated with the second document, and producing an alert if a segment of the production key is identical to a segment of the registration key. For example, the registration key may comprise a digital fingerprint and registration metadata and the production key may comprise a digital fingerprint and production metadata, and the method may produce an alert of the digital fingerprint of the production key matches the digital fingerprint of the registration key.

Claims

1. A computer based method of protecting sensitive documents, the method comprising:

receiving, at first user interface device, a first set of documents;

identifying a first document in the first set of documents;

generating a registration key associated with the first document;

receiving, at a second user interface device, a second set of documents;

identifying a second document in the second set of documents;

generating a production key associated with the second document;

receiving, at a server, the registration key and the production key but not the first of second set of documents; and

producing an alert if a segment of the production key is identical to a segment of the registration key;

wherein a method implemented to generate the segment of the registration key and a method implemented to generate the segment of the production key generate identical results when applied to identical documents.

2. The computer based method of claim 1 wherein the first set of documents comprises documents that have been identified as sensitive at the first user interface device, and wherein the second set of documents comprises documents that have been identified as not sensitive at the second user interface device.

3. The computer based method of claim 2 wherein a first user has identified the first set of documents as sensitive at the first user interface device and a second user has identified the second set of documents as not sensitive at the second user interface devive.

4. The computer based method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating a plurality of registration keys such that each registration key is associated with a corresponding document of the first set of documents;

generating a plurality of production keys such that each production key is associated with a corresponding document of the second set of documents,

receiving, at the server, the plurality of registration keys and the plurality of production keys, and

producing the alert if a segment of any of the production keys is identical to a segment of any of the registration keys.

5. The computer based method of claim 4 wherein the alert is a listing of any documents having the segment of its corresponding production key matching the segment of any registration key.

6. The computer based method of claim 5 wherein the alert includes identifying information for identifying each document having the segment of its production key matching the segment of any registration key or having the segment of its registration key matching the segment of any production key in both the first set of documents and the second set of documents.

7. The computer based method of claim 1 wherein the segment of the registration key is a registration digital fingerprint generated from at least a portion of the first document, and wherein the segment of the production key is a production digital fingerprint generated from at least a portion of the second document.

8. The computer based method of claim 1 further comprising:

associating each document with an event, and

transmitting the alert to a user associated with the event associated with the second document.

9. The computer based method of claim 1 wherein the segment of the registration key is generated by a cryptographic hash function that takes as input a portion of the first document and the segment of the production key is created by the cryptographic hash function that takes as input a corresponding portion of the second document.

10. The computer based method of claim 1 wherein the registration key contains less information than the first document.

11. The computer based method of claim 1 further comprising associating the first document with a first action key identifying a first legal action and associating the second document with a second action key identifying a second legal action and producing an alert only if the first legal action is associated with the second legal action.

12. The computer based method of claim 1 wherein the first document is a member of a first set of documents marked as sensitive and the second document is a document being modified or distributed.

13. The computer based method of claim 12 wherein the generation of the production key is triggered as a result of one of:

transferring the second document to a flash drive;

uploading the second document to a website;

transmitting the second document by email;

or

downloading the document to a personal computer.

14. A system for protecting sensitive documents comprising:

a server;

a database;

a first user interface device; and

a second user interface device,

wherein a first set of documents is identified at the first user interface device;

a first document is identified at the first user interface device as a member of the first set of documents;

a first user interface device generates a registration key comprising a digital fingerprint and metadata for the first document, and transmits the registration key to the server, and wherein the first document is not transmitted to the server;

the server stores the registration key and the metadata for the first document at the database;

a second set of documents is identified at the second user interface device;

a second document is identified at the second user interface device as a member of the second set of documents;

the second user interface device generates a production key comprising a digital fingerprint and metadata for the second document and transmits the production key to the server, and wherein the second document is not transmitted to the server; and

the server produces an alert if the digital fingerprint of the production key is identical to any digital fingerprint of a registration key stored in the database,

wherein the alert comprises the registration key for the first document or the production key of the second document.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the first set of documents comprises documents that have been identified as sensitive, and wherein the second set of documents comprises documents that have been identified as not sensitive.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the second document is identified at the second user interface device as a document to be modified or distributed.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the second user interface device is configured to generate the production key when performing one of:

transferring the second document to a flash drive;

uploading the second document to a website;

transmitting the second document by email;

or

downloading the document to a personal computer.