Continuous security updates

• US 8,473,480 B1
• Filed: 12/30/2004
• Issued: 06/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Nguyen, Phuong Binh, Zhu, Hongjun, Hu, Feng
• Primary Examiner(s): Chempakaseril, Ann
• Application Number:
  US11/027,786
• Time in Patent Office: 3,099 Days
• Field of Search: 711/216, 713/165, 713/200, 726/1, 707/3, 707/6, 707/10, 707/999.1, 707/705, 707/708, 707/715, 707/741, 709/242
• US Class Current: 707/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6263 during internet communication, e.g. revealing personal data from cookies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/645 using a third party

Abstract

Serving a search result is disclosed. A security fingerprint of a security configuration is generated. The security fingerprint is concatenated with a query having a search term and a search result is returned that includes both the search term and the security fingerprint.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of serving a search result, the method comprising:

generating with a computer system a security fingerprint by hashing a security configuration, wherein the security configuration;

(i) includes patterns of URLs to multiple documents, and (ii) indicates whether each of the multiple documents is unsecured, wherein some of the multiple documents are secured and other of the multiple documents are unsecured;

adding, in a search engine index, the generated security fingerprint as an indexed term for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials;

determining that a computerized device is to receive search results for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials;

adding the security fingerprint to a search query that includes a search term and that is from the computerized device;

returning, in response to the search query, search results that correspond to documents that are associated in the search engine index with the search term and the security fingerprint;

repeatedly updating the security fingerprint, by hashing the security configuration, to generate an updated security fingerprint;

determining that the security configuration has changed based on the updated security fingerprint being different than the security fingerprint; and

providing, in the search engine index and in response to determining that the security configuration has changed, the updated security fingerprint as an indexed term for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the security fingerprint is a hash value generated by hashing the security configuration.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the security fingerprint includes a character that is not allowed in a search query.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the security fingerprint includes a character that an indexer does not index during an indexing process.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the character is a delimiter.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the security configuration is one of a plurality of security configurations, and wherein generating the security fingerprint includes concatenating the plurality of security configurations together and generating the security fingerprint by hashing that concatenation.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the security fingerprint changes whenever the security configuration is modified.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

constructing the search engine index,

constructing a replacement index,

replacing the search engine index by the replacement index, wherein the providing the updated security fingerprint as the indexed term for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials occurs at least once during the period between when the search engine index is created and when the search engine index is replaced by the replacement index.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein the security fingerprint changes whenever one of the plurality of security configurations changes.

10. The method of claim 1 further including notifying a security ripper if the security configuration changes.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the search results are of a plurality of entries in the index.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein for each entry in the index, a security ripper determines whether the security fingerprint should be included as a term.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether credentials are required to access a document and associating the security fingerprint with the document in the index based on the result.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein an indexer is notified if the security configuration changes.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein an index server is notified if the security configuration changes.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the determining includes receiving, at the computer system and with the query from the computerized device, a request to limit the search results to search results that are unsecured and do not require credentials, and wherein adding the security fingerprint to the search query is performed by the computer system.

16. A computer-implemented system for serving a search result in response to a user query, the system comprising:

a memory configured to store an index of multiple documents, a subset of the documents being associated in the index with a security fingerprint as an added term based on the subset of documents being unsecured and not requiring credentials, wherein some of the multiple documents are secured and other of the multiple documents are unsecured;

a monitor configured to repeatedly generate the security fingerprint based on a security configuration that includes patterns of URLs to multiple documents and indicates whether each of the multiple documents is unsecured;

an indexer to update the index of documents when the security fingerprint changes so that the index includes, for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials, an updated security fingerprint that is generated by the monitor after a change in the security configuration; and

a search server to receive a query having a search term, determine that search results corresponding to documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials should be returned in response to the query, incorporate the security fingerprint into the query, and return search results corresponding to documents that are associated in the search index with both the security fingerprint and the search term.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the security fingerprint includes a disallowed character.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the security fingerprint includes a character that the indexer does not index during an indexing process.

19. The system of claim 16 further comprising a security ripper configured to include the security fingerprint in the index for those documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials.

20. The system of claim 16 further comprising a first index of the multiple documents configured to be replaced by a replacement index of the multiple documents, wherein the security fingerprint changes at least once during the period between when the first index is created and when the first index is replaced by the replacement index.

24. The system of claim 16, wherein the monitor is configured to generate the security fingerprint by hashing the security configuration.

25. The system of claim 16, wherein the indexer updates the index of search results, every time a change is made to the security configuration, with an updated security fingerprint based on the change being made to the security configuration.

21. A system for serving a search result comprising:

an index of multiple documents, a subset of the documents being associated in the index with a security fingerprint based on the subset of documents being unsecured and not requiring credentials;

means for generating the security fingerprint from a security configuration, wherein the security configuration includes patterns of URLs to multiple documents and wherein the security configuration indicates whether each of the multiple documents is unsecured;

an indexer to update the index of documents when the security fingerprint changes so that the index includes, for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials, an updated security fingerprint that is generated after a change in the security configuration; and

means for incorporating the security fingerprint into a query having a search term and for returning search results based on a search index including the security fingerprint for documents corresponding to the search results.

22. A computer program product for serving a search result, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions that when executed by a computer processor perform operations that include:

generating a security fingerprint from a security configuration, wherein the security configuration;

(i) includes patterns of URLs to multiple documents, and (ii) indicates whether each of the multiple documents is unsecured, wherein some of the multiple documents are secured and other of the multiple documents are unsecured;

adding, in a search engine index, the generated security fingerprint as an indexed term for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials;

determining that a computerized device is to receive search results for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials;

concatenating the security fingerprint with a query that has a search term and that is from the computerized device;

returning, in response to the query, multiple search results that correspond to documents that are associated in the search engine index with the search term and the security fingerprint;

repeatedly updating the security fingerprint, from the security configuration, to generate an updated security fingerprint;

determining that the security configuration has changed based on the updated security fingerprint being different than the security fingerprint; and

providing, in the search engine index and in response to determining that the security configuration has changed, the updated security fingerprint as an indexed term for documents that are unsecured and do not require credentials.