Trusting crowdsourced data with issued tags

• US 9,537,889 B2
• Filed: 12/05/2011
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Kuehnel, Thomas Werner, Guday, Shai
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Tuan A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Merilyn
• Application Number:
  US13/311,513
• Publication Number:
  US 20130144879A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,856 Days
• Field of Search: 707/736
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2329 using versioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/34 ensuring sequence integrity, e.g. using sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1458 Denial of Service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

Embodiments control submission of crowdsourced data from a computing device to a cloud service. The cloud service receives a packet from the computing device having collected data and a single-use data tag associated therewith. The single-use data tag represents one of a threshold quantity of single-use data tags issued to the computing device. The cloud service validates the single-use data tag in the received packet by, for example, searching for the single-use data tag in a tag store maintained by the cloud service. The collected data from the received packet is stored by the cloud service based on the validation. After validation, the tag store is updated to prevent re-use of the single-use data tag. In some embodiments, the cloud service is a location service receiving crowdsourced beacon fingerprint data from a plurality of mobile computing devices.

Claims

1. A system for submitting a limited amount of trusted crowdsourced sensor data to cloud service, said system comprising:

a memory associated with a mobile computing device, said memory storing no more than a threshold quantity of single-use data tags issued by a data tag authority, said single-use data tags having expiration data associated therewith;

one or more sensors; and

a processor programmed to;

obtain sensor data from at least one of the sensors;

identify one of the threshold quantity of single-use data tags from the memory based on the expiration data;

associate the obtained sensor data with the identified single-use data tag to create a trusted crowdsourced packet;

send the trusted crowdsourced packet to a cloud service for storage;

after sending the trusted crowdsourced packet to the cloud service for storage, alter the identified single-use data tag in the memory, to prevent re-use of the identified single-use data tag, by altering the expiration data to indicate that the identified single-use data tag has expired.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to identify one of the threshold quantity of single-use data tags from the memory based on the expiration data by selecting one of the single-use data tags that is unexpired.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to receive the threshold quantity of single-use data tags from one or more of the following:

the data tag authority, a web service, and a peer device.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor data comprises one or more of the following:

a positioned observation including one or more beacons observed by the mobile computing device, voting data, patient data including medical records, and search query terms.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for restricting and anonymizing a limited amount of trusted crowdsourced sensor data for submission to the cloud service.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is programmed to include a token in the trusted crowdsourced packet for validation by the cloud service.

7. A method comprising:

receiving, by a cloud service from a computing device, a packet having collected data and a single-use data tag associated therewith, said single-use data tag being one of a threshold quantity of single-use data tags issued to the computing device;

validating the single-use data tag in the received packet by searching for the single-use data tag in a tag store maintained by the cloud service and by evaluating expiration data of the single-use data tag;

storing the collected data based on said validating; and

updating the tag store to prevent re-use of the single-use data tag by changing an expiration date of the data tag to a current date.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising maintaining the tag store having sets of the single-use data tags stored therein, each of the sets representing a limited quantity of the single-use data tags issued to one of a plurality of computing devices.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the received packet further includes a token, and further comprising validating the packet using the token to detect tampering.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising issuing another single-use data tag to the computing device after said updating.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein storing the collected data based on said validating comprises storing the collected data if the single-use data tag passes validation and discarding the collected data if the single-use data tag fails validation.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the collected data associated with the single-use data tag is stored only once by the cloud service.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein validating the single-use data tag comprises:

determining a quantity of single-use data tags received from the computing device;

comparing the determined quantity to the threshold quantity; and

storing the collected data based on said comparing.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein receiving the packet having collected data is not stored by the cloud service after expiry of the single-use data tag.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein validating the single-use data tag comprise matching the single-use data tag with a copy stored in the tag store at a time of issuance of the single-use data tag.

16. The method of claim 7, wherein validating the single-use data tag comprise determining a quantity of the collected data to be stored and storing only the determined quantity.

17. Computer storage memory embodying computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a data tag authority component that when executed causes at least one processor to issue a threshold quantity of single-use data tags to a computing device, said data tag authority component further storing a copy of the issued single-use data tags in a tag store;

a communications interface component that when executed causes at least one processor to receive, from a computing device, a packet having collected data and one of the issued single-use data tags;

a security component that when executed causes at least one processor to validate the single-use data tag received by the communications interface component by searching for the single-use data tag in the tag store;

a memory component that when executed causes at least one processor to store the collected data based on the validation performed by the security component, wherein the data tag authority component updates the tag store to prevent reuse of the single-use data tag received by the communications interface component by updating expiration data of the single-use data tag; and

a tracking component for identifying a plurality of previously-received packets associated with one of the threshold quantity of single-use data tags, and wherein the memory component further removes the identified plurality of previously-received packets from the tag store.

18. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the data tag authority component further issues another single-use data tag for the computing device.

19. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the security component identifies the single-use data tag as malicious after the single-use data tag fails validation.

20. The computer storage memory of claim 17, wherein the threshold quantity of single-use data tags are associated with a web service, said data tag authority further issuing, to the computing device, another threshold quantity of single-use data tag associated with another web service.