CACHE DEFEAT DETECTION AND CACHING OF CONTENT ADDRESSED BY IDENTIFIERS INTENDED TO DEFEAT CACHE

• US 20120110111A1
• Filed: 11/01/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seven Networks LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Seven Networks Inc
• Inventors: Luna, Michael, Ponomarenko, Andrei
• Granted Patent: US 8,190,701 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2876 Pairs of inter-processing entities at each side of the network, e.g. split proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data

Abstract

Systems and methods for cache defeat detection are disclosed. Moreover, systems and methods for caching of content addressed by identifiers intended to defeat cache are further disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of resource management in a wireless network by caching content on a mobile device. The method can include detecting a data request to a content source for which content received is stored as cache elements in a local cache on the mobile device, determining, from an identifier of the data request, that a cache defeating mechanism is used by the content source, and/or retrieving content from the cache elements in the local cache to respond to the data request.

Claims

1. A method of resource management in a wireless network by caching content on a mobile device, the method, comprising:

detecting a data request to a content source for which content received is stored as cache elements in a local cache on the mobile device;

determining, from an identifier of the data request, that a cache defeating mechanism is used by the content source;

retrieving content from the cache elements in the local cache to respond to the data request.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, a parameter in the identifier indicates that the caching defeat mechanism is used.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein, a format of the parameter is used to detect that the cache defeat mechanism is used.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein, the parameter indicating the cache defeat mechanism includes one or more changing parameters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, a changing parameter in the identifier is identified to indicate cache defeat when responses corresponding to multiple data requests are the same even when the multiple data requests used identifiers with the changing parameter being different for each of the multiple data requests.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein, the parameter includes a time and/or date parameter.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein, the one or more changing parameters include a changing time parameter and a changing date parameter.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein, the parameter includes a random parameter.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising, normalizing the identifier to identify content from the cache elements stored in the local cache to respond to the data request;

wherein, the cache elements are stored in the local cache as being associated with a normalized version of the identifier.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising,

monitoring the content source for new or changed data, by a proxy server remote from and in wireless communication with the mobile device, using a modified version of the identifier;

wherein, the proxy server monitors the content source for new or changed data at a frequency that is based on polling frequency of the content source from the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising, removing the cache elements from the local cache when the proxy server detects new or changed data

6. The method of claim 6, wherein, the responses corresponding to the multiple data requests includes at least two responses that that are the same to identify the changing parameter as indicating cache defeat.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein, the responses corresponding to the multiple data requests includes at least three responses that that are the same to identify the changing parameter as indicating cache defeat.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein, the content retrieved from the cache elements for the data request is identified in the local cache using a normalized version of the identifier which excludes the changing parameter.

15. A method of resource management in a network by caching content on a mobile device, the method, comprising:

storing content from a content server as cached elements in a local cache on the mobile device;

in response to receiving a polling request to contact the content server, retrieving the cached elements from the local cache to respond to the polling request made at the mobile device such that a radio of the mobile device need not be activated to service the polling request, even when a cache defeating mechanism is employed.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein, the cache defeating mechanism is employed by the content server.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising, detecting the cache defeating mechanism from a syntax or pattern of a resource identifier included in the polling request identifying the content server.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein, the resource identifier includes a URI and the URI is normalized by converting the URI scheme and host to lower-case.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein, the identifier includes a URI and the URI is normalized by, performing one or more of, capitalizing letters in percent-encoded escape sequences, removing a default port, and removing duplicate slashes.

20. A method of resource management in a wireless network by caching content on a mobile device, the method, comprising:

determining, from an identifier of a data request directed to a content source, that the identifier defeats cache;

wherein, a changing parameter in the identifier is used to detect that a cache defeating mechanism is employed;

generating a normalized version of the identifier by removing the changing parameter; and

using the normalized version identifier to determine that content received from the content source has been stored as cache elements in a local cache on the mobile device;

making a decision as to whether to use the content in the cache elements to respond to the data request.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein, in making the decision, the content identified in the cache elements is not used to respond to the data request, when the data request is made in association with user interaction with an application on the mobile device.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein, in making the decision, the content identified in the cache elements is used to respond to the data request, when the data request is made by an application running in a background.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising, retrieving the content identified from the cache elements in the local cache to respond to the data request., such that radio use need not be or is not activated at the mobile device to satisfy the data request.

24. A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which when executed by a processor causes the processor to perform a method of resource management in a network by detecting cache defeat for caching content on a mobile device, the method, comprising:

identifying a parameter in an identifier used in multiple polling requests to a given content source;

detecting that the parameter in the identifier changes for each of the polling requests;

determining whether responses received from the given content source are the same for each of the multiple polling requests;

caching the responses on the mobile device in response to determining that the responses received for the given content source are the same.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein, a format of the parameter is used to determine that the parameter indicates cache defeat.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein, a format of the parameter is used to determine that the parameter is a date or time parameter.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising, determining that the parameter is a date or time parameter by a comparison with current date and/or time.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising, generating a normalized version of the identifier by removing the parameter;

wherein, the normalized version of the identifier is associated with cached elements in the local cache for future identification and retrieval.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein, the normalized version of the identifier without the parameter is communicated to the proxy server, for use by the proxy server in storing and detecting new or changed data from the host server.

30. The method of claim 29,

wherein, a modified identifier is used in polling the given content source to detect new or changed data from the content source for the polling requests,

wherein, by the content source is polled by a proxy server remote from mobile device, wherein, the modified identifier uses a substitute parameter in place of the parameter that is used to defeat cache.