Systems and methods to emulate user network activity

• US 9,866,461 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2013
• Issued: 01/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Weerasinghe, Srilal
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): Woo, Andrew
• Application Number:
  US13/888,983
• Publication Number:
  US 20130246618A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,708 Days
• Field of Search: 709223, 709224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A method includes monitoring network activity corresponding to a user device to detect a period of inactivity and generating additional network activity that is different from the network activity in response to detecting the period of inactivity. The additional network activity obscures a profile of a user. The profile is generated by a remote user tracking engine.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory accessible to the processor, the memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

detecting, based on monitored network communications of a user device over a network, a period of inactivity at the user device that follows a period of user initiated network activity at the user device, the period of user initiated network activity associated with user input at the user device;

receiving control data from a first device associated with an anti-profiling service, wherein the control data includes a first list of keywords unavailable to generate additional network activity, a first list of universal resource locators unavailable to generate the additional network activity, or combinations thereof; and

in response to detecting the period of inactivity, sending a communication via the network to generate additional network activity associated with the user device, the communication based on the control data, wherein the additional network activity is configured to obscure profile data included by a user tracking profile generation engine in a user profile associated with the user device, the profile data corresponding to the user initiated network activity.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein generating the additional network activity includes:

submitting a search query to a search engine; and

submitting a hypertext transfer protocol request corresponding to a search result generated by the search engine.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further include identifying a second list of keywords stored in the memory, the second list of keywords including keywords that are uncorrelated to a user preference and demographic information associated with a user of the user device, wherein the communication is based on a particular keyword in the second list of keywords, wherein the particular keyword is not included in the first list of keywords.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the additional network activity emulates activity of a user of the user device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein sending the communication comprises sending a plurality of requests to access a network resource via a public network.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein sending the plurality of requests comprises automatically generating a hypertext transfer protocol request and sending the hypertext transfer protocol request via the public network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise, in response to detecting user activity at the user device during generation of the additional network activity, ceasing generation of the additional network activity.

8. A method comprising:

detecting, based on monitored network communications of a user device over a network, a period of inactivity at the user device that follows a period of user initiated network activity at the user device, the period of user initiated network activity associated with user input at the user device;

receiving control data from a first device associated with an anti-profiling service, wherein the control data includes a first list of keywords unavailable to generate additional network activity, a first list of universal resource locators unavailable to generate the additional network activity, or combinations thereof; and

in response to detecting the period of inactivity, sending a communication via the network to generate additional network activity associated with the user device, the communication based on the control data, wherein the additional network activity is configured to obscure profile data included by a user tracking profile generation engine in a user profile associated with the user device, the profile data corresponding to the user initiated network activity.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein sending the communication includes:

generating a search query; and

transmitting the search query to a search engine.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein generating the additional network activity further includes:

identifying a channel randomly or pseudo-randomly; and

sending a request to a video server to receive the channel.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein generating the additional network activity further includes:

selecting an advertisement included in multimedia content; and

sending a hypertext transfer protocol request to a device associated with the advertisement based on a link included in the advertisement.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the additional network activity is generated at the user device.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the additional network activity emulates activity of a user of the user device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the control data further includes a list of keywords available to generate the additional network activity, a list of universal resource locators available to generate the additional network activity, or a combination thereof.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein sending the communication comprises sending a plurality of requests to access a network resource via a public network.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving second control data from the first device associated with the anti-profiling service after generating the additional network activity, wherein the control data includes first information and the second control data includes second information different from the first information.

17. A computer readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

detecting, based on monitored network communications of a user device over a network, a period of inactivity at the user device that follows a period of user initiated network activity at the user device, the period of user initiated network activity associated with user input at the user device;

receiving control data from a first device associated with an anti-profiling service, wherein the control data includes a first list of keywords unavailable to generate additional network activity, a first list of universal resource locators unavailable to generate the additional network activity, or combinations thereof; and

sending a communication via the network to generate additional network activity associated with the user device, the communication based on the control data, wherein the additional network activity is configured to obscure profile data included by a user tracking profile generation engine in a user profile associated with the user device, the profile data corresponding to the user initiated network activity.

18. The computer readable storage device of claim 17, wherein generating the additional network activity further includes generating a random or pseudo random email message and sending the email message.

19. The computer readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the email message is sent to a randomly generated email address.

20. The computer readable storage device of claim 17, wherein generating the additional network activity further includes sending a request to a video server to receive streaming media content.