Encrypted universal resource identifier (URI) based messaging

• US 8,560,843 B1
• Filed: 09/24/2010
• Issued: 10/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Symantec Corporation (NortonLifeLock Inc.)
• Inventors: Moscaritolo, Vincent E., Cokenias, Damon
• Primary Examiner(s): Dollinger, Tonia L
• Assistant Examiner(s): ZAND, DAVOUD AMAN
• Application Number:
  US12/890,425
• Time in Patent Office: 1,117 Days
• Field of Search: 713190-193, 713/162, 726/14, 726/15, 726/27, 380/255
• US Class Current: 713/162
• 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 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams

Abstract

A method and apparatus for encrypted universal resource identifier (URI) based messaging is described. In one embodiment of the method, a computing system receives an encrypted message from a first client computing system over a network, stores the received message in a message data store, generates a shortened uniform resource locator (URL) for subsequent retrieval of the stored message, and sends the shortened URL to the first client computing system. Subsequently, the computing system receives a request, including the shortened URL, from a second client computing system to retrieve the stored message. The computing system encrypts the stored message in a URI and sends the URI to the second client computing system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a server computing system, an encrypted message from a first client computing system over a network;

storing the received message in a message data store;

generating a shortened uniform resource locator (URL) for subsequent retrieval of the stored message;

sending the shortened URL to the first client computing system;

receiving a request from a second client computing system to retrieve the stored message, the request comprising the shortened URL, wherein the receiving the request comprises receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) GET request;

extracting a unique key from the shortened URL;

retrieving the stored message using the unique key;

encrypting the stored message in a uniform resource identifier (URI), wherein the encrypting the stored message comprises;

encrypting the stored message into a string suitable for URL handling; and

prepending an encryption type URI to the string; and

sending the URI to the second client computing system, wherein the sending the URI comprises replying to the HTTP GET request with an HTTP redirection string comprising the URI.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

decrypting the encrypted message received from the second client computing system;

hashing the decrypted message before storing the message in the message data store; and

generating the unique key for subsequent retrieval of the stored message.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the message data store is a message database, and wherein the unique key uniquely identifies an entry in the message database that contains the message.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the second client computing system receives the HTTP redirection string from the server computing system, invokes a URL handler for the encryption type URI, and passes contents of the HTTP redirection string to a messaging application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the encrypted message is a binary-to-text encoding.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the encrypted message is a Radix-64 message string.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first client computing system communicates the shortened URL to the second client computing system using a public medium coupled to the network.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a server computing system, cause the server computing system to perform operations comprising:

receiving, at the server computing system, an encrypted message from a first client computing system over a network;

storing the received message in a message data store;

generating a shortened uniform resource locator (URL) for subsequent retrieval of the stored message;

sending the shortened URL to the first client computing system;

receiving a request from a second client computing system to retrieve the stored message, the request comprising the shortened URL, wherein the receiving the request comprises receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) GET request;

extracting a unique key from the shortened URL;

retrieving the stored message using the unique key;

encrypting the stored message in a uniform resource identifier (URI), wherein the encrypting the stored message comprises;

encrypting the stored message into a string suitable for URL handling; and

prepending an encryption type URI to the string; and

sending the URI to the second client computing system, wherein the sending the URI comprises replying to the HTTP GET request with an HTTP redirection string comprising the URI.

9. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprises:

decrypting the encrypted message received from the second client computing system;

hashing the decrypted message before storing the message in the message data store; and

generating the unique key for subsequent retrieval of the stored message, wherein the shortened URL comprises at least a portion of the unique key.

10. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the second client computing system receives the HTTP redirection string from the server computing system, invokes a URL handler for the encryption type URI, and passes contents of the HTTP redirection string to a messaging application.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the encrypted message is a binary-to-text encoding.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the encrypted message is a Radix-64 message string.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the first client computing system communicates the shortened URL to the second client computing system using a public medium coupled to the network.

14. A system, comprising:

a message data store to store messages; and

a server computing system coupled to the message data store, wherein the server computing system is to operate a message server to receive an encrypted message from a first client computing system over a network, to store the received message in the message data store, to generate a shortened uniform resource locator (URL) for subsequent retrieval of the stored message, and to send the shortened URL to the first client computing system, and

wherein the message server is to receive a request from a second client computing system to retrieve the stored message, the request comprising the shortened URL, to encrypt the stored message in a uniform resource identifier (URI), and to send the URI to the second client computing system,

wherein the server computing system comprises;

a network interface to receive network traffic comprising at least one of the encrypted message and the request to retrieve the stored message;

a storage interface coupled to communicate with the message data store;

a message handler, the message handler to monitor the network traffic received on the network interface, and to transfer the encrypted message to a cryptographic unit for message storage processing and to transfer the request to the cryptographic unit for message retrieval processing;

the cryptographic unit to perform message storage processing on the encrypted message and to perform message retrieval processing on the request; and

a shortened URL generator to generate the shortened URL for subsequent retrieval of the stored message.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the cryptographic unit comprises:

a decryption module to decrypt the encrypted message;

a hashing unit to hash the decrypted message for storage in the message data store;

a key generator to generate a unique key for subsequent retrieval of the stored message, wherein the shortened URL comprises at least a portion of the unique key;

a key extractor to extract the unique key from the shortened URL of the request;

a message retrieval unit to retrieve the stored message using the unique key;

an encryption module to encrypt the stored message into a string suitable for URL handling; and

a URI generator to generate the URI with an encryption type URI and the encrypted string.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising the first client computing system, wherein the first client computing system comprises:

a messaging application to receive input to create the message;

an encryption module to encrypted the message; and

a network interface to send the encrypted message to the server computing system over the network and to receive the shortened URL from the server computing system over the network.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising the second client computing system, wherein the second client computing system comprises:

a network interface to send the request to the server computing system over the network and to receive the URI from the server computing system;

a URL handler to pass the URI to a decryption module;

a decryption module to receive the URI from the URL handler and to decrypt the encrypted contents of the URI and send the decrypted contents to a messaging application; and

the messaging application to process the decrypted message.