Apparatus and method for blocking access to undesirable web sites on the internet

• US 6,934,753 B2
• Filed: 03/08/2001
• Issued: 08/23/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Planty Net Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Planty Net Company Limited
• Inventors: Kim, Tae-Ju
• Primary Examiner(s): Peikari, B. James
• Application Number:
  US09/802,357
• Publication Number:
  US 20010037385A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,629 Days
• Field of Search: 725/25, 710/200, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/6, 707/7, 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/218, 709/224, 709/225, 709/228, 709/229, 709/230
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

An apparatus and method for blocking access to undesirable web sites by central control at a network provider'"'"'s side according to the subscriber requests are disclosed, in which the apparatus reduces time and expenditure for managing the subscriber side and allows the subscriber to use the Internet without anxiety of access to undesirable web sites. The apparatus according to the present invention comprises a central control center for specifying and providing a control list of undesirable web sites to be blocked, a plurality of remote control units for blocking access to the undesirable web sites on the basis of the control list, and a link control network for controlling the connection of the plurality of remote control units and the central control center.

Claims

1. An apparatus for blocking access to undesirable web sites comprising:

a central control center for specifying and providing control lists of the undesirable web sites to be blocked and for managing subscribers;

a plurality of remote control units disposed between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the subscribers for blocking access to the undesirable web sites based on the control lists to be blocked supplied from the central control center when the subscribers attempts to access the undesirable web sites; and

a link control network for controlling connections of the plurality of remote control units and the central control center;

wherein the remote control unit includes;

a blocking control server, coupled to the central control center, for specifying a block list and controlling Internet connection by subscribers;

an access block list DB for storing the lists of undesirable web sites received from the central control center; and

an expert engine for analyzing a type of utilizing information by the subscribers and for transmitting the information to the central control center when the information is to be blocked.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the central control center comprises:

a central control system for searching and recording the undesirable web sites to be blocked in real time and for supplying the lists of recorded undesirable web sites to the remote control units;

a search system for searching out undesirable web sites; and

a block list system for classifying, recording, sustaining, managing, or changing the lists of the undesirable web sites searched out by the search system.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the search system comprises:

an automatic search system, including a web-robot for extracting all information of documents supplied on the Internet and an expert engine for checking contents of the information extracted by the web-robot and extracting list information of the sites containing undesirable information, for automatically referring to the contents of sites registered on the Internet and for extracting any sites containing undesirable information; and

a manual search system for searching any sites containing undesirable information by an expert.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the web-robot extracts all information of documents located on the Internet, browses redundancy of incoming information and avoids the users from devoting one site for an excessively long time.

5. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the block list system comprises:

a database system for storing lists of undesirable web sites to be blocked, collecting initial data and constructing a database by grading the collected data according to URL to be blocked,

a classification system for determining whether an associated site is an undesirable web site on the basis of site information supplied from the search system; and

a management system for managing the lists of the recorded undesirable web sites such as categories, ratings, keywords and invalid sites.

6. A method of blocking access to undesirable web sites when a subscriber attempts to access to undesirable web sites, comprising:

when an Internet user subscribes to a link block service, registering information regarding the user and providing the information to a remote control unit;

when the registered subscriber attempts to access a certain web site through the Internet, comparing the web site with lists of the undesirable web sites constituted by the central control center and destination URLs, and determining whether the subscriber attempts to access the undesirable web sites;

when a URL corresponding to the web site accessed by the subscriber is contained in the lists of the undesirable web sites, determining that the subscriber attempts to access the undesirable web sites, and transmitting a message indicative of disallowance site to the subscriber terminal; and

when the URL corresponding to the web site accessed by the subscriber is not contained in the lists of the undesirable web sites, providing a message of allowance to an Internet Service Provider to which the subscriber is registered, and establishing a link between the Internet Service Provider and the subscriber terminal,

wherein the comparing step to the providing step are repeatedly performed whenever the subscriber attempts to access a web site on the Internet;

wherein the constitution of the lists of the undesirable web sites in the central control center includes;

preparing an initial control list DB including text, picture, motion pictures, chat content, newsgroups and FTP servers information;

browsing whether the control list contains undesirable information and classifying the control list;

updating the control list DB by changing the control list into converted data based on the browsed results and the classified results;

checking the validity of each site in the control list through a web-robot, an expert engine and an Internet browsing expert; and

updating the control list DB by deleting invalid sites, wherein the control list is specified by repeating the investigating step to the updating step after preparing the initial control list.