Method and an apparatus to store content rating information

• US 7,769,766 B1
• Filed: 05/24/2004
• Issued: 08/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SonicWALL, Inc. (SonicWall Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Yanovsky, Boris, Zhu, Shunhui, Yanovsky, Roman, Shor, Alexander, Popov, Nikolay V., Dubrovsky, Alex M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz; Apu M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bibbee; Jared M
• Application Number:
  US10/853,447
• Time in Patent Office: 2,262 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/709, 707/710, 707/754
• US Class Current: 707/754
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation

Abstract

A method and an apparatus to store content rating information have been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a user request to access a web page, sending a domain name system (DNS) request to a first one of a plurality of DNS servers from a content filtering client to get content rating information of the web page in response to the user request, and receiving from the first one DNS server a DNS response containing the content rating information to the content filtering client. Other embodiments have been claimed and described.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a user request to access a web page;

converting a domain name of the web page into an identifier of the web page, the identifier being different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the web page;

generating a content rating domain name system (CR DNS) request in response to the user request, the CR DNS request including the converted domain name;

distinguishing the CR DNS request from standard DNS requests by the converted domain name;

in response to the user request, sending the CR DNS request to a first one of a plurality of DNS servers from a content filtering client to get content rating information of the web page using the identifier, wherein the first one DNS server forwards the CR DNS request to a second one of the plurality of DNS servers if the first one DNS server does not have the content rating information cached;

receiving from the first one DNS server a DNS response containing the content rating information to the content filtering client; and

blocking the user from accessing the web page if the content rating information of the web page is in a predetermined category.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first one DNS server is a local DNS server and the second one DNS server is a remote DNS server.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the second DNS server sends the DNS response containing the content rating information to the first one DNS server.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising setting a parameter in the CR DNS request to indicate for how long the first one DNS server is to cache the content rating information from the second DNS server.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising setting a flag in the CR DNS request to cause the DNS response to pass through one or more of the plurality of DNS servers over which the CR DNS request was sent.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising decrypting the content rating information returned in the response.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether to allow user access to the web page based on the content rating information.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising setting a content rating flag in the CR DNS request.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the user request includes a HTTP_GET call.

10. A method comprising:

receiving a content rating domain name system (CR DNS) request from a content filtering client via a plurality of DNS servers, the CD DNS request comprising an identifier of a web page generated from a reformatted domain name of the web page, wherein the identifier is different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the webpage;

distinguishing the CR DNS request from standard DNS requests by the identifier of the web page;

in response to the CR DNS request, in a DNS response sending content rating information of the web page to the content filtering client from a first server via the plurality of DNS servers, wherein the content rating information is cached in each of the plurality of DNS servers; and

causing the content filtering client to block a user from accessing the web page if the content rating information of the web page is in a predetermined category.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first server is a DNS server comprising a cache to store the content rating information.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising the first server retrieving the content rating information from a database, wherein the first server is an authoritative server coupled to the database, wherein said retrieving comprises extracting the domain name of the web page from the identifier.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising encrypting the content rating information before sending the content rating information.

14. A physical machine accessible storage medium that provides instructions that, if executed by a processor, will cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a content rating domain name system (CR DNS) request from a content filtering client, the CR DNS request comprising an identifier of a web page generated from a reformatted domain name of the web page, wherein the identifier is different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the webpage;

distinguishing the CR DNS request from standard DNS requests by the reformatted domain name of a web page;

determining whether content rating information of a predetermined web page is cached in a first DNS server in response to the CR DNS request;

forwarding the CR DNS request to a second server if the content rating information is not cached in the first DNS server;

sending the cached content rating information in a first DNS response from the first DNS server to the content filtering client if the content rating information is cached in the first DNS server; and

blocking a user from accessing the web page if the content rating information of the web page is in a predetermined category.

15. The physical machine accessible storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a second DNS response corresponding to the CR DNS request from the second server, the second DNS response containing the content rating information;

caching the content rating information in the first DNS server in response to a first flag set in the CR DNS request; and

forwarding the second DNS response to the content filtering client.

16. The physical machine accessible storage medium of claim 15, wherein the content rating information in the second DNS response is encrypted.

17. The physical machine accessible storage medium of claim 15, wherein forwarding the second DNS response includes forwarding the second DNS response via one or more DNS servers, over which the DNS request was received, in response to a second flag set in the DNS request.

18. A system comprising:

a first content filtering client, coupled to a first set of one or more client machines, to send content rating domain name system (CR DNS) requests for content rating information of web pages via a plurality of DNS servers in response to attempts to access web pages by the first set of one or more client machines and to block the one or more client machines from accessing the web pages if the content rating of the web pages is in a predetermined category, wherein each of the CR DNS requests includes an identifier of a corresponding web page generated from a reformatted domain name of the corresponding web page, wherein the identifier is different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the web page; and

an authoritative server, coupled to a database, to receive CR DNS requests, distinguish the CR DNS requests from standard DNS requests by reformatted domain names of the web pages, retrieve content rating information from the database, and send in DNS responses the content rating information.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a second content filtering client, coupled to a second set of one or more client machines, to send DNS requests for content rating information of web pages in response to attempts to access the web pages by the second set of one or more client machines.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising the plurality of DNS servers.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the plurality of DNS servers include a first DNS server to cache DNS responses and to respond to subsequent DNS requests from the cached DNS responses.

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the authoritative server encrypts the content rating information before sending the content rating information and the first content filtering client decrypts the content rating information.

23. The system of claim 18, wherein the first set of client machines includes at least one gateway server.

24. The system of claim 18, wherein the first set of client machines includes at least one personal computer.

25. The system of claim 18, wherein each one of the DNS requests includes a first flag to cause the DNS servers to cache a corresponding DNS response to the one DNS request if the first flag is set.

26. The system of claim 18, wherein the authoritative sever is operable to send DNS responses via the DNS servers over which the DNS requests were received.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein each one of the DNS requests includes a parameter to indicate for how long the DNS servers, via which a DNS response corresponding to the DNS request is sent, are to cache the DNS response.

28. An apparatus comprising:

an interface to couple to a database; and

a processor operable to distinguish content rating domain name system (CR DNS) requests from standard domain name system (DNS) requests by identifiers of web pages in the CR DNS requests generated from reformatted domain names of the web pages, the identifiers being different from Universal Resource Locators (URLs) and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the web pages, to retrieve content rating information of web pages from the database in response to a first flag set in a DNS request received from a content filtering client, to send the content rating information in a DNS response to the content filtering client via a plurality of DNS servers, and to cause the content filtering client to block users from accessing the web pages if the content rating of the web pages is in a predetermined category.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, further comprising an encoder to encrypt the content rating information in the DNS response.

30. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the DNS request is received over the plurality of DNS servers.

31. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a user request to access a web page;

means for converting a domain name of the web page into an identifier of the web page, said identifier being different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the web page;

means for generating a content rating domain name system (CR DNS) request in response to the user request, the CR DNS request including the converted domain name;

means for distinguishing the CR DNS request from standard DNS requests by the converted domain name;

means for sending the CR DNS request to a first one of a plurality of DNS servers from a content filtering client to get content rating information of the web page using the identifier in response to the user request;

means for causing the first DNS server to forward the CR DNS request to a second server if the first DNS server does not have the content rating information cached;

means for receiving from the first one DNS server a DNS response containing the content rating information to the content filtering client; and

means for blocking the user from accessing the web page if the content rating information of the web page is in a predetermined category.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising means for decrypting the content rating information.

33. A method comprising:

detecting an HTTP_GET for an Internet Protocol (IP) address acquired through a first domain name system (DNS) transaction using a domain name of a web page at a first DNS server;

converting the domain name of the web page into an identifier of the web page, said identifier being different from an Universal Resource Locator (URL) and an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the web page;

generating a content rating DNS (CR DNS) request as a second DNS request for content rating information of the web page in response to the HTTP_GET, the CR DNS request including the converted domain name of the web page;

distinguishing the second DNS request from standard DNS requests by the converted domain name;

transmitting the second DNS request from the first DNS server to a second DNS server;

receiving a second DNS response from the second DNS server, the second DNS response including the content rating information; and

causing a content filtering client to block users from accessing the web page if the content rating information of the web page is in a predetermined category.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the first DNS transaction comprises:

generating a first DNS request to convert the domain name into the IP address;

transmitting the first DNS request; and

receiving a first DNS response including the IP address.

35. The method of claim 33, further comprising decrypting the content rating information in the second DNS response received.

36. The method of claim 33, further comprising:

receiving the second DNS request at a DNS server;

the DNS server generating the second DNS response from a cache of the DNS server; and

the DNS server transmitting the second DNS response.

37. The method of claim 33, further comprising:

receiving the second DNS request at an authoritative server, wherein the second DNS request traveled through a set of one or more DNS servers to reach the authoritative server;

accessing the content rating information based on the identifier;

generating the second DNS response; and

transmitting the second DNS response.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the generating the second DNS response includes:

encrypting the content rating information;

storing the content rating information in the second DNS response; and

setting fields in the second DNS response to cause the second DNS response to travel back through the set of DNS servers and be cached by that set of DNS servers for a predetermined period of time.