Method for masking content displayed on electronic device

• US 10,642,989 B2
• Filed: 03/06/2019
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Sathish, Sailesh Kumar, Seetharamu, Vinod Keshav
• Primary Examiner(s): Lipman, Jacob
• Application Number:
  US16/294,184
• Publication Number:
  US 20190205549A1
• Time in Patent Office: 426 Days
• Field of Search: 726 28
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/032 Protect output to user by software means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0245 Filtering by information in the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/37 Managing security policies for mobile devices or for controlling mobile applications

Abstract

A method for masking content to be displayed on the electronic device is provided. The method includes receiving, by a processor in the electronic device, the content to be displayed on the electronic device, determining, by the processor, that at least one portion of the content is objectionable content based on a semantic signature of a content filter, and masking, by the processor, the at least one portion of the content displayed on the electronic device based on the detection.

Claims

1. A method for providing content of an electronic device, the method comprising:

obtaining, by at least one processor in the electronic device, the content to be displayed on the electronic device based on a user input;

determining, by the at least one processor, a degree of similarity between a semantic signature of at least one portion of the content and a semantic signature of a content filter; and

masking or highlighting, by the at least one processor, the at least one portion of the content displayed on the electronic device based on the degree of similarity,

wherein a type of masking or highlighting is determined based on the degree of similarity.

2. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

receiving the content filter from an external electronic device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the type of the masking or highlighting comprises at least one of blocking the at least one portion of the content completely, blocking the at least one portion of the content partially, blocking the at least one portion of the content transparently, changing font style or font size of the at least one portion of the content, changing the at least one portion of the content to an alternative content, or highlighting the at least one portion of the content.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a user input on the masked or highlighted content; and

displaying a message indicating why the at least one portion of the content is masked or highlighted.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a user input for unmasking the at least one portion of the content;

sending a unmask request to an external device of another user; and

unmasking the at least one portion of the content in response to permission for unmasking at the external device by the another user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the content filter is created based on at least one of a specific word, a specific age, a specific country, a specific artifact, a specific event, a specific religion, or a specific culture determined by a user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one portion of the content comprises at least one of text, an image, a video, a uniform resource locator (URL), a uniform resource identifier (URI), or a content linked to by the URL.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the content behind the URL is determined by searching semantic content linked to by the URL by a web crawler.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the content filter is one of generated within the electronic device and received from another electronic device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the content filter is generated by computing a semantic signature of content selected by a user of the electronic device.

11. An electronic comprising:

a display configured to display contents; and

at least one processor configured to;

obtain the content to be displayed on the electronic device based on a user input,

determine a degree of similarity between a semantic signature of at least one portion of the content and a semantic signature of a content filter, and

mask or highlight the at least one portion of the content displayed on the electronic device based on the degree of similarity,

wherein the at least one processor is further configured to determine a type of masking or highlighting based on the degree of similarity.

12. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to receive the content filter from an external device.

13. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the type of the masking or highlighting comprises at least one of blocking the at least one portion of the content completely, blocking the at least one portion of the content partially, blocking the at least one portion of the content transparently, changing font style or font size of the at least one portion of the content, changing the at least one portion of the content to an alternative content, or highlighting the at least one portion of the content.

14. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

detect a user input on the masked or highlighted content, and

display a message indicating why the at least one portion of the content is masked or highlighted.

15. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

detect a user input for unmasking the at least one portion of the content,

send a unmask request to an external device of another user, and

unmask the at least one portion of the content in response to permission for unmasking at the external device by the another user.

16. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to create the content filter based on at least one of a specific word, a specific age, a specific country, a specific artifact, a specific event, a specific religion, or a specific culture determined by a user.

17. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the at least one portion of the content is at least one of a text, an image, a video, a uniform resource locator (URL), a uniform resource identifier (URI), a content linked to by the URL.

18. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein the content behind the URL is determined by searching semantic content linked to by the URL by a web crawler.

19. The electronic device of claim 11, wherein the content filter is one of generated within the electronic device and received from another electronic device.

20. The electronic device of claim 19, wherein the content filter is generated by computing a semantic signature of content selected by a user of the electronic device.