Electronic Device Communication System and Method

• US 20080137843A1
• Filed: 02/12/2008
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Softex LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Softex Incorporated
• Inventors: Dube, Shradha, Raikar, Rayesh Kashinath, Kapila, Ranjit, Bhansali, Apurva Mahendrakumar, Jain, Manoj Kumar, Rangarajan, Gayathri, Tucker, Thomas David, Dhanani, Kamal Mansukhlal, Patel, Mehul Ramjibhai, Varghese, Elza Abraham
• Granted Patent: US 8,065,511 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 380/29
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/572 Secure firmware programming, e.g. of basic input output system [BIOS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/88 Detecting or preventing theft or loss
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/082 using revocation of authorisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/126 Anti-theft arrangements, e.g. protection against subscriber identity module [SIM] cloning

Abstract

A system and method for electronic device communication. A system includes a client device application including an encryption/decryption module, wherein the module directly transmits and receives data to and from the client device application; and a server device application including an encryption/decryption module coupled to the client device application through a communication medium, wherein the module directly transmits and receives data to and from the server device application.

Claims

1. An electronic device security and tracking system, comprising:

a client device application including an encryption/decryption module, wherein the module directly transmits and receives data to and from the client device application; and

a server device application including an encryption/decryption module coupled to the client device application through a communication medium, wherein the module directly transmits and receives data to and from the server device application.

2. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 1, wherein the communication medium uses a hyper-text transfer protocol.

3. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 1, further comprising wherein the encryption/decryption module encrypts and encodes data for transmission and decrypts and decodes received data.

4. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 3, wherein the client device application sends query information to the server device application.

5. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 4, wherein the query information is sent at randomly selected times.

6. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 4, wherein the query information asks if the electronic device has been reported stolen.

7. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 6, wherein the query information is encrypted into a binary format.

8. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 7, wherein the binary encrypted query information is encoded into American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format.

9. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 8, wherein the binary encrypted query information is encoded by:

selecting a subgroup of bits from one or more bytes of query information data;

passing the subgroup of bits to an encoding function that performs binary mapping operations on the subgroup of bits to generate an encoded byte; and

encoding the next one or more bytes of data from the binary encrypted query information if the end of the binary encrypted query information has not been reached.

10. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 9, wherein the binary mapping operations further comprises mapping of the subgroup of bits to a character that may be printed and displayed.

11. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 10, wherein every three bytes of query information data is mapped to four bytes of encoded data.

12. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 9, wherein the subgroup of bits is six bits.

13. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 9, further comprising:

storing the byte of data in a first variable, wherein the byte of data is made up of bits;

storing the subgroup of bits from the byte of data in a second variable; and

storing the encoded byte into a data structure.

14. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 13, wherein the data structure is an array of bytes.

15. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 8, wherein the encoded American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format query information is received by the server device application.

16. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 15, wherein the American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format query information is decoded into the binary format query information.

17. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 16, wherein the binary format query information is decrypted into the query information.

18. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 16, wherein the American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format query information is decoded by:

selecting a byte of data;

passing the byte of data to a decoding function that returns a decoded byte;

extracting the lower six bits of the decoded byte and discarding the upper two bits, wherein the lower six bits are appended to a stream of bits that form consecutive bytes; and

decoding the next bytes of data from the American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format query information if the end of the American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format query information has not been reached.

19. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 18, wherein the decoding function further comprises mapping the American Standard Code of Information Interchange byte of data to the binary format query information data byte.

20. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 18, further comprising storing the consecutive bytes into a data structure.

21. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 20, wherein the data structure is an array of bytes.

22. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 3, wherein the client device application send messages to the server device application.

23. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 22, wherein the server device application sends messages to the client device application.

24. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 23, wherein the messages are short messaging service messages.

25. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 24, wherein the message is encrypted into a binary format.

26. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 25, wherein the message is encrypted by:

storing electronic device information into a first variable;

jumbling the electronic device information;

storing the jumbled device information into a second variable;

passing the jumbled device information and a secret command to an encryption function that returns an encrypted array of bytes; and

encoding the encrypted array of bytes into American Standard Code of Information Interchange text format.

27. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 26, wherein jumbling further comprises shuffling the device information.

28. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 27, wherein the encryption function comprises performing symmetric encryption on the jumbled device information using a built-in key.

29. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 26, wherein encoding the encrypted array of bytes comprises:

selecting a subgroup of bits from one or more bytes in the encrypted array of bytes;

passing the subgroup of bits to an encoding function that performs binary mapping operations on the subgroup of bits to generate an encoded byte; and

encoding the next one or more bytes of data from the encrypted array of bytes if the end of the encrypted array of bytes has not been reached.

30. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 29, wherein the binary mapping operations further comprises mapping of the subgroup of bits to a character that may be printed and displayed.

31. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 30, wherein every three bytes of query information data is mapped to four bytes of encoded data.

32. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 29, wherein the subgroup of bits is six bits.

33. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 29, further comprising:

storing the byte of data in a first variable, wherein the byte of data is made up of bits;

storing the subgroup of bits from the byte of data in a second variable; and

storing the encoded byte into a data structure.

34. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 33, wherein the data structure is an array of bytes.

35. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 26, wherein the encoded array of bytes is received by the server device application.

36. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 35, wherein the encoded array of bytes is decoded into the binary format.

37. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 36, wherein decoding into the binary format comprises:

selecting a byte of data;

passing the byte of data to a decoding function that returns a decoded byte;

extracting the lower six bits of the decoded byte and discarding the upper two bits, wherein the lower six bits are appended to a stream of bits that form consecutive bytes; and

decoding the next bytes of data from the encoded array of bytes if the end of the array of bytes has not been reached.

38. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 37, wherein the decoding function further comprises mapping the byte of data to the binary format.

39. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 37, further comprising storing the consecutive bytes into a data structure.

40. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 39, wherein the data structure is an array of bytes.

41. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 36, wherein the decoded array of bytes is decrypted into the short messaging service message.

42. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 41, wherein decrypting into the message comprises:

passing a decoded byte into a decryption function that returns a decrypted byte;

extracting the jumbled device information and the secret command from the decrypted byte; and

unjumbling the jumbled device information to determine the device information.

43. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 42, wherein unjumbling further comprises unshuffling the device information.

44. The electronic device security and tracking system of claim 43, wherein the decryption function comprises performing symmetric decryption on the decoded byte using a built-in key.