Method and system for internet censorship

• US 20050015453A1
• Filed: 05/28/2003
• Published: 01/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sound View Innovations, LLC (Sound View Innovation Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Su, Daisy Feng-Mei, Chin, Frances Mu-Fen, Yin, Yu, Yang, ZhongJin, Chou, Jennifer L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,516,536 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/207
• 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 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

A method of censoring Internet content includes: packetizing a web page into one or more data packets (50); inserting into the data packets censorship ratings corresponding to the web page'"'"'s content; conveying the data packets (50) over the Internet (30) to a receiving end user terminal (10); determining the censorship ratings of the data packets (50); and, acting on the data packets (50) in response to their determined censorship ratings.

Claims

1. A method of censoring Internet content, said method comprising:

packetizing a web page into one or more data packets;

inserting into the data packets censorship ratings corresponding to the web page'"'"'s content;

conveying the data packets over the Internet to a receiving end user terminal;

determining the censorship ratings of the data packets; and

, acting on the data packets in response to their determined censorship ratings.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of acting comprises:

accepting the data packets if the determined censorship ratings meets defined criteria; and

,

rejecting the data packets if the determined censorship ratings do not meet the defined criteria.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

provisioning the data packets with headers;

inserting the censorship ratings in the headers; and

,

reading the headers to determine the censorships rating for the data packets.

4. The method of claim 1,wherein the censorship ratings indicate at least one of a type of content for the web page or an age limit for the content of the web page.

5. A method of censoring content provided by a host over a communications network to an end user terminal, said method comprising:

formatting the content into data packets;

provisioning the data packets with headers;

providing for censorship ratings to be contained in the headers, said censorship ratings corresponding to the content contained in the data packets; and

,

reading the headers to determine the censorship ratings of the data packets such that data packets having censorships ratings that are within defined limits are delivered to the end user terminal and data packets having censorship ratings that are outside the defined limits are not delivered to the end user terminal.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

blocking delivery of data packets to the end user terminal when it is determined that the data packets do not have censorship ratings in their headers.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

informing the host when headers are read that do not contain censorship ratings.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

informing the end user terminal when data packets are not delivered thereto because it is determined that they have censorship ratings that are outside the defined limits.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the defined limits are selected by an operator of the end user terminal.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the censorship ratings categorize content by at least one of a content'"'"'s subject matter and an age limit for the content.

11. A system for censoring content provided by a host over a communications network to an end user terminal, said system comprising:

means for formatting the content into data packets;

means for provisioning the data packets with headers;

means for storing censorship ratings in the headers, said censorship ratings corresponding to the content contained in the data packets; and

,

means for reading the headers to determine the censorship ratings of the data packets such that data packets having censorships ratings that are within defined limits are delivered to the end user terminal and data packets having censorship ratings that are outside the defined limits are not delivered to the end user terminal.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for blocking delivery of data packets to the end user terminal when it is determined that the data packets do not have censorship ratings in their headers.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for informing the host when headers are read that do not contain censorship ratings.

14. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for informing the end user terminal when data packets are not delivered thereto because it is determined that they have censorship ratings that are outside the defined limits.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the defined limits are selected by an operator of the end user terminal.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the censorship ratings categorize content by at least one of a content'"'"'s subject matter and an age limit for the content.