Message rendering for identification of content features

• US 8,250,159 B2
• Filed: 01/23/2009
• Issued: 08/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Starbuck, Bryan T., Rounthwaite, Robert L., Heckerman, David E., Goodman, Joshua T.
• Primary Examiner(s): HIGA, BRENDAN Y
• Application Number:
  US12/359,126
• Publication Number:
  US 20100088380A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,306 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-207, 709223-226, 726 22- 24
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

Architecture for detecting and removing obfuscating clutter from the subject and/or body of a message, e.g., e-mail, prior to filtering of the message, to identify junk messages commonly referred to as spam. The technique utilizes the powerful features built into an HTML rendering engine to strip the HTML instructions for all non-substantive aspects of the message. Pre-processing includes pre-rendering of the message into a final format, which final format is that which is displayed by the rendering engine to the user. The final format message is then converted to a text-only format to remove graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing that cannot be rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters. The result is essentially to reduce each message to its common denominator essentials so that the junk mail filter can view each message on an equal basis.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a computer-readable storage device, comprising;

pre-rendering logic that receives a message containing unrendered text and a non-text element intended to thwart a junk filter by varying the unrendered text and that renders the message in a user—

perceivable format;

converting logic that converts the rendered message into a text-only message by removing the non-text element of the rendered message and rendering words and phrases of the rendered message into text, the converting logic mitigating an affect of the non-text element; and

filtering logic that filters the text-only message based upon predetermined content related to a degree of visibility of user-perceivable content of the rendered message, the filtering logic including weighting logic that adjusts a weighting parameter associated with the text of the text-only message to determine if the text should be removed, the filtering logic further making a determination of whether to handle the message as a junk message or a legitimate message based at least in part on a number of images associated with the text-only message and a total area of the images associated with the text-only message.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-rendering logic is a display engine that renders the message in the user-perceivable format that is to be presented to a user via a display.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-rendering logic is a display engine that renders the message, into the user-perceivable format by at least one of removing comments, applying decoration, skipping invalid decoration commands, and applying final positions, the message being an e-mail.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the converting logic removes from the rendered message at least one of graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein at least one of the graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters is utilized by the filtering logic to change a weighting parameter of at least one of a character, a word, and the text.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the text-only message is analyzed for at least one of embedded tags, comments, and invisible and substantially invisible text.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the filtering logic includes a support vector machine utilized for determining a weight of a word.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising non-text decoding logic that decodes non-text-encoded portions of the message.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the filtering logic is further configured to process images to ascertain if the image is junk-related by determining at least one of image size, image dimension, image type, and image location.

10. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor for storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform operations comprising;

receiving a message containing unrendered text and a non-text element intended to thwart a junk filter by varying the unrendered text;

pre-rendering the message into a first format corresponding to content intended to be user perceived;

adjusting a weighting parameter associated with text of the message to determine if the text should be removed related to a degree of visibility of the user-perceivable content of the rendered message;

converting the message of the first format into a character-only message; and

determining whether to handle the message as a junk message or a legitimate message based on the character-only message, the determining being based at least in part on a number of images associated with the message and a total area of the images associated with the message.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the pre-rendering is performed by a display engine that renders the message into the first format by at least one of removing comments, applying decoration, skipping invalid decoration commands, and applying final positioning, the message being an e-mail message.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the converting includes removing from the rendered message at least one of graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein at least one of the graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters, is utilized by a filtering component to change a weighting parameter associated with at least one of a character, word, and text.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising non-text decoding of non-text-encoded portions of the message.

15. The system of claim 10, further comprising processing images to ascertain if the image is junk-related by determining at least one of image size, image dimension, image type, image location, number of images, and area consumed by a plurality of the images.

16. A method, comprising:

receiving a message containing unrendered text and a non-text element intended to thwart a junk filter by varying the unrendered text;

pre-rendering the message into a first format corresponding to content intended to be user perceived, the pre-rendering mitigating an affect of the non-text element;

adjusting a weighting parameter associated with text of the message to determine if the text should be removed relative to a degree of visibility of the user-perceivable content of the rendered message;

converting the message of the first format into a character-only message;

creating a hash of the message and images within the message to determine whether the message and future messages are junk messages; and

determining whether to handle the message as a junk message or a legitimate message based on the character-only message and the hash, the determining being based at least in part on a number of images associated with the message or whether images associated with the message link to another source.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the message is pre-rendered with a display engine such that the message of the first format is displayed to a user.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the message is pre-rendered with a display engine that renders the message into the first format by at least one of removing comments, applying decoration, skipping invalid decoration commands, and applying final positioning.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the message of the first format is converted by removing at least one of graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the message is analyzed for at least one of embedded tags and comments.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the message is rendered and analyzed for raw HTML features.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein the character-only format is a text-only format.

23. The method of claim 22, the message in text-only format is processed to analyze a word or plurality of words for at least one of font size, brightness, special formatting, and placement in a link.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the word or plurality of words are removed from the message when one or more of the word(s) or one or more characters of the word(s) are invisible or substantially invisible.

25. The method of claim 16, wherein the message is an e-mail message.

26. The method of claim 16, further comprising decoding non-text-encoded portions of the message.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the non-text decoding component is a MIME decoder.

28. The method of claim 16, further comprising processing images to ascertain if the image is junk-related by determining at least one of image size, image dimension, image type, image location, number of images, and area consumed by a plurality of the images.