Secure data exchange technique

• US 9,104,883 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zeta Global Corp. (Zeta Global Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Acxiom Corporation (Interpublic Group of Cos., Inc.)
• Inventors: McKenna, Eugene William
• Primary Examiner(s): LEWIS, LISA C
• Application Number:
  US13/838,519
• Publication Number:
  US 20130212697A1
• Time in Patent Office: 879 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/62 Protecting access to data via a platform, e.g. using keys or access control rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6254 by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6263 during internet communication, e.g. revealing personal data from cookies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2107 File encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0414 during transmission, i.e. party's identity is protected against eavesdropping, e.g. by using temporary identifiers, but is known to the other party or parties involved in the communication

Abstract

Techniques utilizing common encryption approaches for data from multiple parties enable those parties to discover information that is held in common by the parties without disclosing to any party information that is not held in common by the parties. Encrypted information for each party can be compared to determine which encrypted values match, and those encrypted values can be returned to any of the parties such that a party can determine which corresponding data the parties have in common without having access to any other data of any other parties.

Claims

1. A suppression system for marketing emails, comprising:

a marketer system having at least one processor operatively coupled with a memory, the marketer system configured to individually encrypt each email address and pattern of a first set of email addresses and patterns using an encryption scheme to create a first set of encrypted strings; and

a central system remote from the marketer system, the central system having at least one processor operatively coupled with a memory, the central system configured to compare the first set of encrypted strings with a second set of encrypted strings, the second set of encrypted strings generated by individually encrypting each email address and pattern of a second set of email addresses and patterns using the encryption scheme, the central system configured to create indications as to which of the encrypted strings are included in both sets of encrypted strings;

wherein the marketer system is configured to suppress sending emails to a subset of email addresses of the first set of email addresses and patterns based on the indications, and wherein the patterns comprise regular expressions.

2. The suppression system of claim 1 wherein the indications include a third set of encrypted strings that are included in both the first and second sets of encrypted strings.

3. The suppression system of claim 1 wherein the indications include a third set of encrypted strings from the first set of encrypted strings that are not in the second set of encrypted strings.

4. The suppression system of claim 1 wherein the indications include a decrypted set of email addresses and patterns.

5. The suppression system of claim 1 wherein the indications include an unencrypted record identifier (ID) associating an email address or pattern of the first set of email addresses and patterns with a corresponding encrypted string of the first set of encrypted strings.

6. The suppression system of claim 5 wherein the marketer system is configured to look up the associated email address or pattern of the first set of email addresses and patterns from a database using the ID.

7. The suppression system of claim 1 wherein the encryption scheme includes a one-way hashing algorithm.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the one-way hashing algorithm is selected from the group consisting of secure hash algorithm (SHA) SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, and medium-digest algorithm MD5.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the marketer system sends the first set of encrypted strings to the central remote system at regular intervals.

10. A suppression system for marketing emails, comprising:

a marketer system having at least one processor operatively coupled with a memory, the marketer system configured to individually encrypt each email address of a first set of email addresses using an encryption scheme to create a first set of encrypted strings; and

a central system remote from the marketer system, the central system having at least one processor operatively coupled with a memory, the central system configured to compare the first set of encrypted strings with a second set of encrypted strings, the second set of encrypted strings generated by individually encrypting each email address of a second set of email addresses using the encryption scheme, the central system configured to create indications as to which of the encrypted strings are included in both sets of encrypted strings, the central system configured to encrypt the second set of encrypted strings from the second set of email addresses;

wherein the marketer system is configured to suppress sending emails to a subset of email addresses of the first set based on the indications.

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising code executable by a processor to perform a method comprising:

individually encrypting on a marketer system each email address and pattern of a first set of email addresses and patterns using an encryption scheme to create a first set of encrypted strings; and

comparing on central system remote from the marketer system the first set of encrypted strings with a second set of encrypted strings, the second set of encrypted strings generated by individually encrypting each email address and pattern of a second set of email addresses and patterns using the encryption scheme, the central system configured to create indications as to which of the encrypted strings are included in both sets of encrypted strings;

wherein the marketer system is configured to suppress sending emails to a subset of email addresses of the first set based on the indications, and wherein the patterns comprise regular expressions.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the indications include a third set of encrypted strings that are included in both the first and second sets of encrypted strings.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the indications include a third set of encrypted strings from the first set of encrypted strings that are not in the second set of encrypted strings.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the indications include a decrypted set of email addresses and patterns.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the indications include an unencrypted record identifier (ID) associating an email address or pattern of the first set of email addresses and patterns with a corresponding encrypted string of the first set of encrypted strings.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the marketer system is configured to look up the associated email address or pattern of the first set of email addresses and patterns from a database using the ID.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the encryption scheme includes a one-way hashing algorithm.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the one-way hashing algorithm is selected from the group consisting of secure hash algorithm (SHA) SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, and medium-digest algorithm MD5.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the marketer system sends the first set of encrypted strings to the central remote system at regular intervals.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the central system is further configured to encrypt the second set of encrypted strings from the second set of email addresses.