Method and an apparatus to request web pages and content rating information thereof

• US 9,015,199 B1
• Filed: 09/06/2011
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SonicWALL, Inc. (SonicWall Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Gmuender, John E., Dubrovsky, Alex M., Popov, Nikolay V., Shor, Alexander, Yanovsky, Roman, Zhu, Shunhui, Yanovsky, Boris
• Primary Examiner(s): Leroux, Etienne
• Assistant Examiner(s): BIBBEE, JARED M
• Application Number:
  US13/226,376
• Time in Patent Office: 1,323 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/709, 707/736, 707/792
• US Class Current: 707/792
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0281 Proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70

Abstract

A method and an apparatus request web pages and content rating information thereof have been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a request from a user for a web page, retrieving content rating of the web page in response to the request, and fetching the web page substantially simultaneously with the retrieving of the content rating in response to the request. Other embodiments have been claimed and described.

Claims

1. A method for filtering web content, comprising:

receiving at a network access device a request for a web page from a client computing device communicatively coupled to the network access device over a network; and

executing a web content filtering application stored in memory of the network access device, wherein execution of the web content filtering application by a processor of the network access device;

checks that a content rating for the web page is locally stored in a storage device of the network access device while simultaneously forwarding the request for the web page to a web page host communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network,

retrieves the content rating from the storage device when the content rating is locally available in the storage device,

generates a content rating domain name service (CR DNS) request, wherein the CR DNS request contains a web page identifier that causes DNS servers to distinguish the CR DNS request from a standard DNS request used to request mapping information,

sends the CR DNS request for the content rating to a DNS infrastructure when the content rating is not locally available in the storage device of the network access device, wherein the DNS infrastructure includes a plurality of DNS servers and is communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network,

receives a CR DNS response containing the content rating from the DNS infrastructure after each DNS server of the DNS infrastructure that interacted with the CR DNS request has stored a copy of the CR DNS response in memory to be accessed following a subsequent CR DNS request for the web page,

receives the web page from the web page host, and

forwards the web page to the client computing device when the content rating contained in the CR DNS response indicates the client computing device is permitted to access the web page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the web page identifier is stored in the domain name field of the CR DNS request.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein retrieving the content rating further includes setting a content rating flag in the CR DNS request.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein execution of the instructions by the processor further decrypts the content rating.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the web page includes a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request for the web page.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein execution of the instructions by the processor further forwards the web page to the client computing device when the content rating is retrieved within a predetermined period of time.

7. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for filtering web content, the method comprising:

receiving at a network access device a request for a web page from a client computing device communicatively coupled to the network access device over a network;

checking that a content rating for the web page is locally stored in a storage device of the network access device while simultaneously forwarding the request for the web page to a web page host communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network;

retrieving the content rating from the storage device of the network access device when the content rating is locally available in the storage device;

generating a content rating domain name service (CR DNS) request, wherein the CR DNS request contains a web page identifier that causes DNS servers to distinguish the CR DNS request from a standard DNS request used to request mapping information;

sending a CR DNS request for the content rating to a DNS infrastructure when the content rating is not locally available in the storage device of the network access device, wherein the DNS infrastructure includes a plurality of DNS servers and is communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network;

receiving a CR DNS response containing the content rating from the DNS infrastructure after each DNS server of the DNS infrastructure that interacted with the CR DNS request has stored a copy of the CR DNS response in memory to be accessed following a subsequent CR DNS request for the web page;

receiving the web page from the web page host; and

forwarding the web page to the client computing device when the content rating contained in the CR DNS response indicates the client computing device is permitted to access the web page.

8. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the web page identifier is stored in the domain name field of the CR DNS request.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein retrieving the content rating further includes setting a content rating flag in the request for the content rating.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further includes decrypting the content rating.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the request for the web page includes a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request for the web page.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein method further includes forwarding the web page to the client computing device when the content rating is retrieved within a predetermined period of time.

13. A web content filtering system, the system comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing a web content filtering client, the content filtering client executable by the processor to;

receive at a network access device a request for a web page from a client computing device communicatively coupled to the network access device over a network,

check that a content rating for the web page is locally stored in a storage device of the network access device while simultaneously forwarding the request for the web page to a web page host communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network,

retrieve the content rating from the storage device when the content rating is locally available in the storage device,

generate a content rating domain name service (CR DNS) request, wherein the CR DNS request contains a web page identifier that causes DNS servers to distinguish the CR DNS request from a standard DNS request used to request mapping information,

send the CR DNS request for the content rating to a DNS infrastructure when the content rating is not locally available in the storage device of the network access device, wherein the DNS infrastructure includes a plurality of DNS servers and is communicatively coupled to the network access device by the network,

receive a CR DNS response containing the content rating from the DNS infrastructure after each DNS server of the DNS infrastructure that interacted with the CR DNS request has stored a copy of the CR DNS response in memory to be accessed following a subsequent CR DNS request for the web page,

receive the web page from the web page host, and

forward the web page to the client computing device when the content rating contained in the CR DNS response indicates the client computing device is permitted to access the web page.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the content filtering client is further executable to set a content rating flag in the request for the content rating.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the content filtering client is further executable to decrypt the content rating.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the request for the web page includes a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request for the web page.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the content filtering client is further executable to forward the web page to the client computing device when the content rating is retrieved within a predetermined period of time.