Systems and Methods for Protecting Communications Between Nodes

• US 20130318339A1
• Filed: 05/24/2012
• Published: 11/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Smart Security Systems, LLC
• Original Assignee: Ken C. Tola
• Inventors: TOLA, Ken C., Bunday, Patrick K.
• Granted Patent: US 9,325,676 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/150
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/16 Obfuscation or hiding, e.g. involving white box
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0478 applying multiple layers of encryption, e.g. nested tunnels or encrypting the content with a first key and then with at least a second key cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements using a plurality of keys or algorithms H04L9/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/166 at the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/566 Grouping or aggregating service requests, e.g. for unified processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/323 in the physical layer [OSI layer 1]

Abstract

Systems and methods for protecting communications between at least two nodes protect the identity of a node requesting information, provide content of communications being sent and/or obscuring a type of communications being sent. Varying degrees of protection options including encryption, intermediate node termination and direct node communications are provided.

Claims

1. A method for protecting communications between at least two nodes, the method comprising:

intercepting data between two logical nodes, the data being intercepted by at least the lowest level of data supported by a communication protocol used to send the data;

altering the intercepted data;

sending the altered data to at least one of the two logical nodes.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the communication protocol is packet based and the data is intercepted at a packet level.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the communication protocol is based on pulses of light and the data is intercepted at a light pulse level.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the altering the intercepted data comprises at least one of compressing the intercepted data, encrypting the intercepted data, obfuscating the intercepted data, inserting new data in the intercepted data and splitting the intercepted data.

5. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

replacing at least one value of at least one intercepted packet with information of an intermediate node.

6. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

replacing at least one value of at least one intercepted packet including intermediate node information with information of the at least one of the two logical nodes.

7. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

synchronizing sequence numbers of packets sent from the at least one of the two logical nodes with sequence numbers of packets sent to the at least one of the two logical nodes.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the intercepting the data between the two logical nodes and the altering the intercepted data utilize resources in at least two different modes of an operating system.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

at least one of accessing and storing shared data in a shared memory by a process executed in a first mode of the at least two different modes of the operating system;

accessing the shared data in the shared memory by the process executed in a second mode of the at least two different modes of the operating system.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining node data from one or more logical source nodes;

altering the intercepted data based on the obtained node data; and

sending the altered data to the at least one of the two logical nodes through at least one of the logical source nodes for which the node data is obtained.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

monitoring a behavior of the at least one of the logical source nodes through which the altered data is sent; and

sending the altered data to the at least one of the two logical nodes through another of the logical source nodes for which the node data is obtained based on the monitored behavior.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein the node data is obtained for source nodes in a selected geographic location.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein the node data obtained from the one more logical source nodes is encrypted by a layered encryption including at least one of a plurality of types of encryption, and the method further comprises decrypting the node data.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

applying a plain view encryption process based on a unique user encryption data set to the intercepted data before altering the intercepted data;

sending the altered and encrypted data to the at least one of the two logical nodes through at least one cryption node.

15. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

applying a plain view encryption process based on a unique user encryption data set to the intercepted data before altering the intercepted data;

sending the altered and encrypted data directly to the at least one of the two logical nodes.

16. The method according to claim 14, further comprising:

decrypting the altered and encrypted data at the cryption node;

sending the altered data to the at least one of the two logical nodes through at least one intermediate node.

17. The method according to claim 14, further comprising:

decrypting the altered and encrypted data at the cryption node;

sending the altered data to the at least one of the two logical nodes directly from the cryption node.

18. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving encrypted data encrypted by a plain view encryption process based on a unique user encryption data set at a cryption node;

decrypting the encrypted data at the cryption node;

sending the decrypted data to the at least one of the two logical nodes.

19. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

encrypting at least a portion of a packet intercepted between the two logical nodes.

20. The method according to claim 1, wherein the application is a virtualized application.

21. A method for protecting communications between at least two nodes, the method comprising:

intercepting first data between two logical nodes;

storing the intercepted first data;

intercepting second data between two logical nodes, the first data and the second data being intercepted by at least the lowest level of data supported by a first communication protocol used to send the first data and a second communication protocol used to send the second data;

comparing the intercepted first data to the intercepted second data;

sending a result of the comparison to at least one of the two logical nodes.

22. A system for protecting communications between at least two nodes, the system comprising:

at least one program configured to intercept data between two logical nodes, the data being intercepted by at least the lowest level of data supported by a communication protocol used to send the data, alter the intercepted data and send the altered data to at least one of the two logical nodes.