Filter for a Distributed Network

• US 20070220116A1
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Global File Systems Holdings, LLC
• Original Assignee: Altnet Incorporated (Brilliant Digital Entertainment Incorporated)
• Inventors: Rose, Anthony
• Granted Patent: US 8,185,576 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/903 Querying for retrieval from the web G06F16/953
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1065 Discovery involving distributed pre-established resource-based relationships among peers, e.g. based on distributed hash tables [DHT] pre-configuration of logical or physical connections H04L67/1053

Abstract

There is disclosed a filter for a distributed network. A method may include receiving index requests from indexing nodes over over a network and providing over the network index responses to the indexing nodes in response to the index requests. The index responses may instruct a receiving indexing node to index a specified file. The method may be implemented in software and on a computer.

Claims

1. A server coupled to a network having a plurality of ordinary nodes and a plurality of indexing nodes, the server configured to:

receive index requests from the indexing nodes; and

provide index responses to the indexing nodes in response to the index requests.

2. The server of claim 1, wherein the network is a peer-to-peer network.

3. The server of claim 2, wherein the peer-to-peer network is one of the FastTrack, eDonkey, Gnutella or BitTorrent networks.

4. The server of claim 1, wherein the index responses each comprise an action code.

5. The server of claim 4, wherein the index responses each further comprise alternative data.

6. The server of claim 5 wherein the alternative data includes a uniform resource locator (URL) of a substitute file.

7. The server of claim 4, wherein the action code comprises index or do not index.

8. The server of claim 4, wherein the action code comprises one of index, do not index, retry, go to uniform resource locator (URL), and replace.

9. The server of claim 8, wherein the index responses include a URL of a substitute file when the action code is replace or is go to URL.

10. The server of claim 1, wherein the index requests each comprise a file identifier.

11. The server of claim 1, wherein the server is configured to receive the index requests over the Internet and to provide the index responses over the Internet.

12. A method comprising:

receiving index requests from indexing nodes over a network; and

providing over the network index responses to the indexing nodes in response to the index requests.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the network is a peer-to-peer network.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the peer-to-peer network is one of the FastTrack, eDonkey, Gnutella or BitTorrent networks.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the index responses each comprise an action code.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the index requests each comprise a file identifier.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the index responses each further comprise alternative data.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the alternative data comprises a uniform resource identifier (URI) of a different version of a file identified by the file identifier.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the alternative data comprises a uniform resource identifier (URI) of a copy protected version of a file the file identified by the file identifier.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the action code comprises index or do not index.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the action code comprises one of index, do not index, retry, go to uniform resource locator (URL), and replace.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the index responses include a URL of a substitute file when the action code is replace or is go to URL.

23. The method of claim 12, wherein the network is the Internet.

24. A server coupled to a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes, the server configured to:

receive index requests from the nodes over the network, each index request including a file identifier; and

provide index responses over the network to the nodes in response to the index requests, each index response including an action code.

25. The server of claim 24, wherein the peer-to-peer network is one of the FastTrack, eDonkey, Gnutella or BitTorrent networks.

26. The server of claim 24, wherein the index responses each further comprise alternative data.

27. The server of claim 26, wherein the alternative data comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) of a substitute file.

28. The server of claim 27, wherein the substitute file is a different version of the file identified by the file identifier.

29. The server of claim 27, wherein the substitute file is a copy protected version of the file the file identified by the file identifier.

30. The server of claim 24, wherein the action code comprises index or do not index.

31. The server of claim 24, wherein the action code comprises one of index, do not index, retry, go to uniform resource locator (URL), and replace.

32. The server of claim 31, wherein the index responses include a URL of a substitute file when the action code is replace or is go to URL.

33. The server of claim 24, wherein the server is configured to receive the index requests over the Internet and to provide the index responses over the Internet.

34. An indexing node coupled to a network having a plurality of ordinary nodes and at least one server, the indexing node configured to:

receive file advertisements from ordinary nodes over the network, each file advertisement specifying at least one advertised file;

send over the network index requests to the server seeking permission to index the advertised file; and

receive over the network index responses from the server in response to the index requests.

35. The indexing node of claim 34, wherein the network is a peer-to-peer network.

36. The indexing node of claim 34, wherein the peer-to-peer network is one of the FastTrack, eDonkey, Gnutella or BitTorrent networks.

37. The indexing node of claim 34, wherein the index responses each comprise an action code.

38. The indexing node of claim 37, wherein the index responses each further comprise alternative data.

39. The indexing node of claim 37, wherein the action code comprises index or do not index.

40. The indexing node of claim 37, wherein the action code comprises one of index, do not index, retry, go to uniform resource locator (URL), and replace.

41. The indexing node of claim 40, wherein the index responses include a URL of a substitute file when the action code is replace or is go to URL.

42. The indexing node of claim 34, wherein the index requests each comprise a file identifier.

43. The indexing node of claim 34, wherein the network is the Internet.

44. The indexing node of claim 34 further configured to:

index the advertised file when the index response includes an index action code;

not index the advertised file when the index response includes a do not index action code.

45. The indexing node of claim 44 further configured to:

resend the index request when the index response includes a retry action code.

46. The indexing node of claim 44 further configured to:

index a substitute file when the index response includes a replace action code.

47. The indexing node of claim 46, wherein the substitute file is a different version of the file included in the advertisement.

48. The indexing node of claim 46, wherein the substitute file is a copy protected version of the file included in the advertisement.

49. A node coupled to a peer-to-peer network having a plurality of nodes and at least one server, the node configured to:

receive file advertisements from other nodes, each file advertisement specifying at least one advertised file;

send index requests to the server seeking permission to index the advertised file, each index request including at least one file identifier; and

receive index responses from the server in response to the index requests, each index response including at least one action code.

50. The node of claim 49, wherein the peer-to-peer network is one of the FastTrack, eDonkey, Gnutella or BitTorrent networks.

51. The node of claim 49, wherein the index responses each further comprise alternative data.

52. The node of claim 49, wherein the action code comprises index or do not index.

53. The node of claim 49, wherein the action code comprises one of index, do not index, retry, go to uniform resource locator (URL), and replace.

54. The node of claim 49 further configured to:

index the advertised file when the index response includes an index action code;

not index the advertised file when the index response includes a do not index action code.

55. The node of claim 49 further configured to:

resend the index request when the index response includes a retry action code.

56. The node of claim 49 further configured to:

index a substitute file when the index response includes a replace action code.

57. The node of claim 56, wherein the substitute file is a different version of the file included in the advertisement.

58. The node of claim 56, wherein the substitute file is a copy protected version of the file included in the advertisement.