Method and apparatus for distributing secure digital content that can be indexed by third party search engines

• US 8,006,307 B1
• Filed: 07/09/2003
• Issued: 08/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Callahan Cellular LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Imophaze Research Co LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Klebe, Skott C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Song; Hosuk
• Assistant Examiner(s): TRUVAN, LEYNNA THANH
• Application Number:
  US10/616,379
• Time in Patent Office: 2,967 Days
• Field of Search: 711/10, 711/111, 711136-137, 711/204, 711/209, 711/213, 713/167, 713/189, 713/193, 713/165, 380/37, 380/42, 380/268, 380/28, 380/210, 705/51, 705/53, 705/57, 705/29, 705/37, 726/1, 726/5, 726/26, 726/35, 726/7, 726 18- 19, 382/181, 382/182, 382/176, 382/290, 382/292, 382/163, 382/171, 382/173, 382177-179, 382/190, 707/673, 707/694, 707/696, 707705-712, 707/741, 707/749, 707/755, 707/757, 707/758, 345/619, 345/636, 715/200, 704/6, 704/243, 704/251, 709/200, 709/219, 709/238
• US Class Current: 726/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/60 Digital content management, e.g. content distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/00 Cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communications; Network security protocols

Abstract

In a secure content distribution system, the text is extracted and scrambled in content documents that include text. The scrambled content is made available for indexing by conventional search engines but is not available as plain text and thus is kept secure. The scrambling process breaks a text stream derived from the content document into two to five word phrases, randomizes the phrases and creates a text file from the randomized stream. Third party search engines are allowed to index the scrambled file so that search algorithms that search on particular words or phrases produce nearly the same number of hits as with the plain text file. A web server that provides the content returns either the scrambled content to a search engine or a link to the publisher by examining a user agent parameter that accompanies a content request. Alternatively the scrambled content also includes a script routine that links to the publisher.

Claims

1. A method for distributing secure digital content that can be indexed by third party search engines, the method comprising:

generating a text stream from the digital content by stripping all graphic information and punctuation from the digital content;

fragmenting the text stream into multi-word phrases that are each contained in the digital content;

randomly assembling the phrases into a scrambled document such that the scrambled document contains at least nearly all of the words and at least most of the phrases as are contained in the digital content; and

making the scrambled document available to third party search engines to permit indexing of the scrambled document that will result in an index that is comparable to an index that would result if the third party search engine indexed the digital content.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the fragmenting step comprises parsing the text stream to generate a word stream and fragmenting the word stream into phrases, where each phrase contains at least two words.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the total number of words in a phrase is random.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the total number of words in a phrase has a maximum of five words.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the randomly assembling step comprises forming a stream of phrases and randomly swapping the position of phrases in the phrase stream.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

returning the scrambled document content when the scrambled document is indexed by the third party search engines.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the returning step comprises examining a user agent parameter to determine whether a search engine or a browser is requesting the scrambled document.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

returning a link to an owner of the secure content when a browser links from the search engine to the indexed scrambled document.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the scrambled document contains a script routine that loads a web page provided by the secure content owner and the returning a link step comprises running the script routine after the scrambled document content has been loaded into the browser.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the returning a link step comprises using the script routine to hide the scrambled text from a user.

11. Apparatus for distributing secure digital content that can be indexed by third party search engines, the apparatus comprising:

a stripper that generates a text stream from the digital content by stripping all graphic information and punctuation from the digital content;

means for fragmenting the text stream into multi-word phrases that are each contained in the digital content;

a stream assembler that randomly assembles the phrases into a scrambled document such that the scrambled document contains at least nearly all of the words and at least most of the phrases as are contained in the digital content; and

means for making the scrambled document available to third party search engines to permit indexing of the scrambled document that will result in an index that is comparable to an index that would result if the third party search engine indexed the digital content.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the means for fragmenting comprises a parser that parses the text stream to generate a word stream and a fragmenter that fragments the word stream into phrases, where each phrase contains at least two words.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the total number of words in a phrase is random.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the total number of words in a phrase has a maximum of five words.

15. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the stream assembler comprises means for forming a stream of phrases and means for randomly swapping the position of phrases in the phrase stream.

16. The apparatus of claim 11 further comprising means for returning the scrambled document content when the scrambled document is indexed by the third party search engines.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the means for returning the scrambled document content comprises means for examining a user agent parameter to determine whether a search engine or a browser is requesting the scrambled document.

18. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising means for returning a link to an owner of the secure content when a browser links from the search engine to the indexed scrambled document.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the scrambled document contains a script routine that loads a web page provided by the secure content owner and the means for returning a link to an owner of the secure content comprises means for running the script routine after the scrambled document content has been loaded into the browser.

20. The apparatus of claim 19 wherein the script routine comprises means for hiding the scrambled text from a user.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions comprising:

instructions for generating a text stream from the digital content by stripping all graphic information and punctuation from the digital content;

instructions for fragmenting the text stream into multi-word phrases that are each contained in the digital content;

instructions for randomly assembling the phrases into a scrambled document such that the scrambled document contains at least nearly all of the words and at least most of the phrases as are contained in the digital content; and

instructions for making the scrambled document available to third party search engines to permit indexing of the scrambled document that will result in an index that is comparable to an index that would result if the third party search engine indexed the digital content.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the instructions for fragmenting the text stream comprise program code for parsing the text stream to generate a word stream and program code for fragmenting the word stream into phrases, where each phrase contains at least two words.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein the total number of words in a phrase is random.

24. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 23 wherein the total number of words in a phrase has a maximum of five words.

25. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the instructions for randomly assembling the phrases into a scrambled document comprise program code for forming a stream of phrases and program code for randomly swapping the position of phrases in the phrase stream.

26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21 further comprising instructions for returning the scrambled document content when the scrambled document is indexed by the third party search engines.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein the instructions for returning the scrambled document:

content comprise program code for examining a user agent parameter to determine whether a search engine or a browser is requesting the scrambled document.

28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26 further comprising instructions for returning a link to an owner of the secure content when a browser links from the search engine to the indexed scrambled document.

29. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 28 wherein the scrambled document contains a script routine that loads a web page provided by the secure content owner and the program code for returning the scrambled document content comprises program code for running the script routine after the scrambled document content has been loaded into the browser.

30. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 29 wherein the script routine comprises program code for hiding the scrambled text from a user.