System and method for transmission of DNS beacons

• US 7,853,721 B2
• Filed: 11/09/2006
• Issued: 12/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dean, Richard Drews, Awadallah, Amr
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan; Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): MURPHY, CHARLES C
• Application Number:
  US11/595,220
• Publication Number:
  US 20080114897A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,496 Days
• Field of Search: 709/250, 709/246, 709/245, 709/242, 709/238, 709/230, 709/229, 709/227, 709/203, 709/236, 709/224, 709/219, 709/217, 709/206, 709/205, 709/200, 709/201, 370/401, 370/395.31, 370/389, 370/363, 370/352, 370/338, 370/254, 370/230
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]

Abstract

The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for transmitting a DNS beacon for storage. A method according to one embodiment comprises generating one or more data items for logging and transmitting a DNS request to an authoritative DNS server for a logging domain, with the host name of the DNS request comprising the one or more data items for logging. The DNS request, which comprises the data items for logging, is stored on a storage device.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting a DNS beacon for storage, the method comprising:

identifying one or more data items for logging, the one or more data items for logging comprising an identifier of a user selected link;

generating a host name for logging, the host name comprising the one or more data items for logging prepended to a domain of a logging domain;

transmitting a DNS request to an authoritative DNS server for logging domain, the host name of the DNS request comprising the one or more data items for logging;

resolving the DNS request by traversing a configuration file at the authoritative DNS server and locating an entry in the configuration file that matches the DNS request; and

storing the DNS request from the authoritative DNS server by writing the DNS request to a logging data store.

2. The method of claim 1 comprising accessing a local DNS server to resolve the DNS request.

3. The method of claim 2 comprising transmitting the DNS request from the local DNS server to the authoritative DNS server.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the logging data store is a relational database.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the logging data store is a flat file.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the DNS request comprises transmitting in response to a request for an image.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the DNS request comprises transmitting in response to a request for an XML document.

8. A method of claim 1 wherein the configuration file at the authoritative DNS server comprises a wildcard entry and wherein the wildcard entry is used to locate an entry that matches the DNS request.

9. The method of claim 1 comprising transmitting a response by the authoritative DNS server.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the response comprises a host not found error.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the host not found error comprises an NXDOMAIN response.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the response comprises a localhost address for the client.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the response comprises a valid IP address.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the response comprises no response.