Verification of content stored in a network

• US 8,543,901 B1
• Filed: 11/01/1999
• Issued: 09/24/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Diwan, Arif
• Primary Examiner(s): Queler, Adam M
• Application Number:
  US09/430,883
• Time in Patent Office: 5,076 Days
• Field of Search: 715/501.1, 715/513, 715/205, 715206-208, 715/234, 705/27, 709218-223, 709/245, 713/178, 713/201, 345/738
• US Class Current: 715/208
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/64 Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures

Abstract

The systems and methods described herein are useful for maintaining the integrity of documents, such as web pages, which contain hyperlinks to other documents, such as other web pages. A value representative of the content or a portion thereof of the document referenced by the hyperlink may be included in the hyperlink, such that changes in the content of the document are reflected as changes in the value representative thereof. Subsequent retrievals of the referenced document may then be analyzed to verify that the contents of the document have not been altered since the hyperlink was created.

Claims

1. A method for creating a self-verifying hyperlink, comprising:

providing an electronic resource accessible at an address,

determining contents of a predetermined portion of the electronic resource at a predetermined time, and

creating a hyperlink which includes;

the address of the electronic resource, and

a verification portion containing said contents, said verification portion being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic resource is modified, said verification portion being configured for use by a processor in comparing contents of said predetermined portion of said electronic resource at said predetermined time to contents of said predetermined portion of said electronic resource when said electronic resource is retrieved, so as to allow for preventing display of changed contents in said electronic resource.

2. A method as in claim 1, further comprising digitally signing a value representative of said contents of said predetermined portion of said electronic resource at said predetermined time.

3. A method as in claim 2, wherein creating a hyperlink includes coupling a URL address with the value.

4. A method as in claim 1, wherein the verification portion comprises a value expressed as an attribute of an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) tag.

5. A method as in claim 1, wherein the verification portion comprises a hash value based on a subset of the electronic document.

6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the verification portion comprises a hash of at least a portion of the electronic document.

7. A method as in claim 1, wherein the hyperlink further comprises instructions for determining a value representative of the contents of the electronic document.

8. A system for monitoring the contents of electronic resources, comprising:

a processor implemented by at least a hardware device;

a hyperlink having

an address for retrieving an electronic resource from a server, and

a verification portion including a predetermined subset of contents of a predetermined version of the electronic resource, said verification portion being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic resource is modified,

a retrieval system, executable by the processor, for obtaining a current version of the electronic resource at the address, and

a comparator, executable by the processor, for comparing the verification portion with the predetermined subset of contents of the current version to determine if the electronic resource has been modified, so as to allow for preventing display of changed contents in said electronic resource.

9. A system as in claim 8, further comprising a processor for calculating a value representative of the predetermined version, wherein the value is a digitally signed value.

10. A system as in claim 8, wherein the address is a URL address.

11. A system for verifying the contents of an electronic resource, comprising:

a processor implemented by at least a hardware device operable to execute;

means for identifying an address of an electronic resource coupled to a first value including a subset of content of the resource at a predetermined time, said first value being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic resource is modified,

means for retrieving the electronic resource,

means for generating a second value including a subset of the contents of the retrieved resource using a processor,

means for comparing the first value with the second value to determine if the resource has been altered since the predetermined time, and

means for preventing display of contents in said electronic resource if the resource has been altered.

12. A method for verifying the contents of an electronic document, comprising:

providing an address for retrieving an electronic document coupled to a value containing, at least in part, a predetermined subset of the contents of the electronic documents at a predetermined time, said value being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic document is modified,

retrieving the electronic document from the address,

determining a value using a processor containing, at least in part, the predetermined subset of the contents of the retrieved document,

comparing the determined value with the value containing, at least the predetermined subset of the contents of the electronic document at the predetermined time to determine if the document has been modified since the predetermined time,

preventing display of contents of said electronic document if the document has been modified.

13. A method as in claim 12, wherein providing an address includes providing a URL address.

14. A method as in claim 12, wherein providing an address includes providing an address for retrieving an electronic document coupled to a digitally signed value representative of the contents of the electronic document at a predetermined time.

15. A method as in claim 12, wherein determining the value comprises determining a hash of at least a portion of the electronic document.

16. A method as in claim 12, further comprising providing an indication if the document has been modified.

17. A system for verifying the contents of an electronic document, comprising:

an address of an electronic document,

a first value representative of the contents of said electronic document at a predetermined time, said value including contents located at predetermined locations in said electronic document, said value being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic document is modified,

a retrieval system for obtaining an electronic document stored at the address,

a processor implemented by at least a hardware device for determining a second value representative of the retrieved document, said second value including contents location at predetermined locations in said retrieved document, and

a comparator for comparing the second value representative of the retrieved document with the first value representative of a document previously retrieved from the address to verify that the values are identical, so as to allow for preventing display of changed contents in said electronic document.

18. A system of claim 17, wherein the processor further calculates a hash of at least a portion of the electronic document.

19. A system of claim 17, wherein the value representative of the retrieved document comprises a value include in an hypertext link.

20. A system of claim 19, wherein the hypertext link comprises an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) link, and wherein the value comprises an attribute of an HTML tag.

21. A system as in claim 19, wherein the hypertext link further comprises instructions for determining a value representative of the contents of the electronic document.

22. A non-transitory computer readable medium, for verifying electronic content referenced by a web-page, the non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions for causing a processor to:

receive information included in a hyperlink with a web-page, the hyperlink including an address of electronic content stored on a first remote network computer and a verification portion having a first value derived from said electronic content, said verification portion being separately designated from the address so as to allow the address to remain unaltered if the electronic document is modified, said first value including data at predetermined locations in said electronic content at a predetermined time, whereby the verification portion can be used to compare data at said predetermined locations in said electronic content at the predetermined time to data at said predetermined locations in said electronic content at a time when the electronic content is retrieved;

derive a second value including data at the predetermined locations in electronic content retrieved from the address using a processor;

determine whether the first value equals the second value; and

provide notification of content modification and prevent display of the electronic content if the first value does not equal the second value when the electronic content is retrieved from the first remote network.

23. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the first value included in the hyperlink comprises an attribute of an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) tag.

24. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the instructions for causing the processor to derive the second value comprises instructions for causing the processor to use a hash function on at least a portion of the electronic content.

25. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the instructions for causing a processor to provide notification comprise instructions for displaying a message to a user.

26. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to retrieve the electronic content.

27. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 26, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to retrieve the web-page.

28. A non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22,

wherein the hyperlink includes instructions for determining a value representative of the contents of the electronic document;

and

wherein deriving the second value comprises deriving a second value using the included instructions.