DISABLING PROHIBITED CONTENT AND IDENTIFYING REPEAT OFFENDERS IN SERVICE PROVIDER STORAGE SYSTEMS

• US 20150143466A1
• 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 Corporation
• Inventors: Zacher, Ryan, Trevino, Jorge Pozas, Miranda-Steiner, Emmanuel, Shahine, Omar, Shah, Dhaval
• Granted Patent: US 9,614,850 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/554 involving event detection and direct action
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2101 Auditing as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/103 applying security measure for protecting copyright
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

Objects in a shared storage system can be marked as including prohibited content. Incidents that result in objects being so marked can be stored in an incident history associated with a user responsible for those objects. The incident history can be processed to identify repeat offenders and modify access privileges of those users. However, when objects are shared by one user with another user, prohibited content is blocked from being shared, while the remainder of the shared objects can be accessed by the other user. Functions that allow sharing of content are implemented so as prevent sharing of prohibited content with another user, while allowing other content to be shared. If a group of files or objects is shared, then the presence of prohibited content in one object in the group results in that prohibited content not being shared, but the remaining files or objects are still shared.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process performed by a processor in a computer, comprising:

storing objects on computer storage;

marking an object as containing prohibited content;

storing an incident in an incident history for a user related to the marking of the object as containing prohibited content;

in response to a request to access the object,

determining if content in the object is marked as containing prohibited content; and

if the content in the object is marked as containing prohibited content, limiting access to the content from the object.

2. The computer-implemented process of claim 1, further comprising:

processing the incident history of a user;

modifying access privileges of the user according to rules applied to the incident history.

3. The computer-implemented process of claim 2, wherein modifying comprises terminating privileges to share objects with others.

4. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, further comprising:

allowing a user to share, with another user, a group of objects;

determining if the group of objects includes an object that is marked as containing prohibited content;

limiting access by the other user to the prohibited content in the object that is marked, while allowing the other user to access other objects in the group of objects.

5. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, wherein the object is a file and marking comprises maintaining an access control list for the file, wherein the access control list includes data indicating a file contains prohibited content.

6. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, wherein the object is a file and limiting access to content in the object includes preventing access to a file stream containing the prohibited content.

7. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, wherein the object is a file and limiting access to content in the object includes allowing access to a file stream containing metadata about the file.

8. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, wherein the object is a file storing an image and limiting access to content in the file includes preventing access to a reduced image representative of the image stored in the file.

9. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, further comprising:

allowing a user to share, with another user, the object that is marked as containing prohibited content;

limiting access by the other user to the prohibited content in the object.

10. The computer-implemented process of claim 3, further comprising:

displaying to a user an indication that the object is marked as including prohibited content.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein the process further comprises:

displaying to a user an indication that the object is marked as including prohibited content.

11. An article of manufacture comprising:

computer storage, and computer program instructions stored on the computer storage, wherein the computer program instructions, when processed by a processing device, instruct the processing device to perform a process comprising;

storing objects on computer storage;

marking an object as containing prohibited content;

storing an incident in an incident history of a user related to the marking of the object;

in response to a request to access the object,

determining if content in the object is marked prohibited; and

if the content in the object is marked prohibited, limiting access to the content from the object.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the process further comprises:

processing the incident history of a user;

modifying access privileges of the user according to rules applied to the incident history.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 12, wherein modifying comprises terminating privileges to share objects with others.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the object is a file and limiting access to content in the object includes preventing access to a file stream containing the prohibited content.

15. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the process further comprises:

allowing a user to share, with another user, the object that is marked as containing prohibited content;

limiting access by the other user to the prohibited content in the object.

17. A computer storage system comprising:

storage in which objects are stored containing content,

one or more processors, connected to the storage, programmed to;

mark objects as containing prohibited content;

in response to marking an object, storing an incident in an incident history for a user related to the marking of the object;

in response to a request to access an object on the storage, if content include in the object is marked prohibited, limit access to the content included in the object.

18. The computer storage system of claim 17, the one or more processors being programmed to:

allow a user to share, with another user, a group of objects;

determining if the group of objects includes an object that is marked as containing prohibited content;

limiting access by the other user to the prohibited content in the object that is marked, while allowing the other user to access other objects in the group of objects.

19. The computer storage system of claim 17, further comprising one or more server computers, including the one or more processors, and connected to a computer network, wherein a plurality of users access the one or more server computers over the computer network to access objects stored on the storage.

20. The computer storage system of claim 17, the one or more processors being programmed to cause an indication to be displayed to a user that an object being accessed includes prohibited content.