SYSTEM PROVIDING FASTER AND MORE EFFICIENT DATA COMMUNICATION

• US 20180241850A1
• Filed: 04/20/2018
• Published: 08/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bright Data, Ltd. (f/k/a Luminati Networks)
• Original Assignee: Hola Newco Ltd.
• Inventors: Shribman, Derry, Vilenski, Ofer
• Granted Patent: US 10,313,484 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1023 based on a hash applied to IP addresses or costs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1063 Discovery through centralising entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/108 characterised by resources being split in blocks or fragments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data

Abstract

A system designed for increasing network communication speed for users, while lowering network congestion for content owners and ISPs. The system employs network elements including an acceleration server, clients, agents, and peers, where communication requests generated by applications are intercepted by the client on the same machine. The IP address of the server in the communication request is transmitted to the acceleration server, which provides a list of agents to use for this IP address. The communication request is sent to the agents. One or more of the agents respond with a list of peers that have previously seen some or all of the content which is the response to this request (after checking whether this data is still valid). The client then downloads the data from these peers in parts and in parallel, thereby speeding up the Web transfer, releasing congestion from the Web by fetching the information from multiple sources, and relieving traffic from Web servers by offloading the data transfers from them to nearby peers.

Claims

1. A method for use with a requesting client device that comprises an HTTP client and is identified over the Internet by a first Internet Protocol (IP) address, for use with a first server that is a web server that is Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server that responds to HTTP requests and stores a first content identified by a first content identifier, for use with a second server distinct from the first web server and identified in the Internet by a second IP address, and for use with a plurality of client devices each identified by a distinct IP address and each storing a part of, or a whole of, the first content, the method by the requesting client device comprising:

identifying, an HTTP request for the first content;

sending, to the second server using the second IP address over the Internet in response to the identifying, the first content identifier, the first IP address, and a criterion; and

receiving, over the Internet in response to the sending, from a first client device selected from the plurality of client devices according to the criterion, the part of, or the whole of, the first content.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising periodically communicating between the second server and the requesting client device.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the periodically communicating comprises exchanging ‘

keep alive’

messages.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising establishing, by the requesting client device, a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection with the second server or with the first client device using TCP/IP protocol.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the requesting client device comprises a wireless modem for Radio-Frequency (RF) communication, and wherein the sending and the receiving is using the RF communication.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first content comprises distinct first and second parts, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, over the Internet in response to the sending, from the first client device selected from the plurality of client devices, the first part, and wherein the method further comprising receiving, by the requesting client device over the Internet in response to the sending, from a second client device selected from the plurality of client devices, the second part.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the criterion is stored in the requesting client device, and the method further comprising selecting, by the requesting client device, the first client device from the plurality of client devices, according to the stored criterion.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the criterion is based on, or comprises, a geographical location of the plurality of client devices, or a response time when communicating with the requesting client device.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the first client device is the quickest to respond to queries from the requesting client device.

10. The method according to claim 7, further comprising sending, by the requesting client device, a notification message to a device from the plurality of client devices that was not selected as part of the selecting.

11. The method according to claim 1, for use with a list of IP addresses of the plurality of client devices that is stored in a second client or a third server device, and wherein the sending comprises sending to the second client or third server device, and the method further comprising receiving, by the requesting client device from the respective second client or third server device the list of the IP addresses.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising selecting, by the requesting client device, the IP address of the first client device from the received list of IP addresses, and sending the first content identifier to the first client device.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein the requesting client device is identified by a Media Access Control (MAC) address or a hostname, and wherein the method further comprising sending, by the requesting client device, during, as part of, or in response to, a start-up of the requesting client device, a first message to the second server, and wherein the first messages comprises the first IP address, the MAC address, or the hostname.

14. The method according to claim 13, for use with a first application stored in the requesting client device and associated with a first version number, wherein the first message comprises the first version number.

15. The method according to claim 14, for use with a second application that is a version of the first application and is stored in the second server and associated with a second version number, wherein the method further comprising receiving, by the requesting client device from the second server, in response to the first message, a second message that comprises the second version number.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the method further comprising downloading over the Internet, by the requesting client device from the second server, in response to the first message, the second application from the second server, and installing the second application in the requesting client device as a replacement for the first application.

17. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first or second server is a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) server and communicates over the Internet with the requesting client device based on, or according to, using TCP/IP protocol or connection.

18. The method according to claim 1, wherein the requesting client device communicates over the Internet based on, or according to, one out of UDP, DNS, TCP, FTP, POP#, SMTP, or SQL standards.

19. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first content comprises web-page, audio, or video content, and wherein the first content identifier is using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

20. The method according to claim 1, further comprising executing, by the requesting client device, a web/Internet browser application or an email application.

21. The method according to claim 20, wherein the identifying comprises intercepting, by a driver in the requesting client device, the request for the first content respectively from the web browser application or the email application.

22. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing, by the requesting client device, the received part of, or the received whole of, the first content.

23. The method according to claim 22, further comprising:

receiving, by the requesting client device from a second device over the Internet, a request for the stored part of, or the stored whole of, the first content; and

sending, in response to the received request by the requesting client device to the second device over the Internet, the stored part of, or the stored whole of, the first content.

24. The method according to claim 1, wherein the requesting client device stores a second content identified by a second content identifier, the method further comprising sending, over the Internet by the requesting client device, a part of, or a whole of, the second content.

25. The method according to claim 24, wherein the sending is at least in part performed in parallel to the identifying, the sending, or the receiving by the requesting client device.

26. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining, by the requesting client device, that the received part of, or the whole of, the first content, is valid.

27. The method according to claim 26, wherein the determining is based on a received HTTP header according to, or based on, IETF RFC 2616.

28. The method according to claim 27, further comprising:

sending, a message over the Internet in response to the determining that the received part of, or the whole of, the first content, is not valid; and

receiving, over the Internet in response to the sending of the message, from a second client device selected from the plurality of client devices, the part of, or the whole of, the first content.