Generating Sequenced Instructions For Connecting Through Captive Portals

• US 20150139082A1
• Filed: 11/15/2013
• Published: 05/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Goyal, Piyush, Guday, Shai, Lamba, Triptpal Singh, MacDonald, David Neil, Mazandarany, Darya, Rice, Christopher R., Sharma, Saumaya, Banks, Nicholas A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,554,323 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/088 using filters or firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices

Abstract

Embodiments produce a set of instructions for connecting to a network through a network access point based on data crowdsourced from mobile computing devices. The crowdsourced data describes interactions between the mobile computing devices and the network access point when establishing a connection to the network. A cloud service analyzes the crowdsourced data to identify a set of instructions for association with the network access point. The mobile computing devices replay the set of instructions when subsequently attempting to connect to the network access point.

Claims

1. A system for producing a set of instructions for connecting to a network through a captive portal based on data crowdsourced from mobile computing devices, said system comprising:

a memory area associated with a computing device, said memory area storing manual portal assist data received from a first set of mobile computing devices, the manual portal assist data describing actions performed by users when connecting to networks through captive portals with the first set of mobile computing devices; and

a processor programmed to;

for at least one of the captive portals, analyze the manual portal assist data stored in the memory area for the captive portal;

enumerate a set of sequenced instructions for the captive portal based on the analysis; and

distribute the enumerated set of sequenced instructions to a second set of the mobile computing devices, the second set of the mobile computing devices applying the distributed set of sequenced instructions when attempting to connect through the captive portal.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the manual portal assist data comprises request and response data from a web browser or client.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to construct one or more sign-on signatures for the captive portal based on the analysis.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the processor is further programmed to identify a plurality of paths based on the constructed sign-on signatures, the plurality of paths representing different methods for connecting through the same captive portal.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the plurality of paths comprises a free path and a paid path.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the processor is programmed to analyze the manual portal assist data for at least one of the sign-on signatures.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to distribute the enumerated set of sequenced instructions via one or more geospatial tile data structures or network-specific queries.

8. A method comprising:

receiving, by a first computing device from each of a plurality of second computing devices, data describing an interaction between the second computing device and a network access point when establishing a connection to a network;

analyzing, by the first computing device, the received data from the plurality of second computing devices to identify a set of instructions for association with the network access point; and

distributing the identified set of instructions to one or more of the plurality of second computing devices, the one or more of the plurality of second computing devices applying the distributed set of instructions when attempting to connect to the network access point.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the network access point provides network access within a geographic area, and wherein distributing the identified set of instructions comprises distributing the identified set of instructions only to one or more of the plurality of second computing devices located within the geographic area.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving location information from each of the plurality of second computing devices, and

selecting, based on the received location information, said one or more of the plurality of second computing devices to receive the identified set of instructions.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving the data comprises receiving a history of request and response data from a browser executing on each of the plurality of second computing devices.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving, from said one or more of the plurality of second computing devices, data indicating whether connection to the network access point was successful.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising adjusting the identified set of instructions based on the received data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising distributing the adjusted set of instructions to said one or more of the plurality of second computing devices.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising distributing the adjusted set of instructions to said one or more of the plurality of second computing devices without first receiving a request for the adjusted set of instructions from said one or more of the plurality of second computing devices.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein analyzing the received data comprises comparing the received data to pre-defined sets of actions to recognize a pattern.

17. One or more computer storage media embodying computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a sandbox component that when executed on a mobile computing device causes at least one processor to capture data describing an interaction between a user of the mobile computing device and a network access point when establishing a connection to a network through the network access point;

a parser component that when executed causes at least one processor to selectively filter the data captured by the sandbox component and to obfuscate personally identifiable information within in the data captured by the sandbox component; and

a communications interface component that when executed causes at least one processor to transmit, to a cloud service, the captured data filtered and obfuscated by the parser component.

18. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the parser component selectively filters images and resources from the captured data.

19. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the sandbox component prevents the user from performing any action other than connecting through the network access point.

20. The computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the sandbox component captures the data until the connection is established.