Method and system for secured transport and storage of data on a network

• US 20020078227A1
• Filed: 07/20/2001
• Published: 06/20/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/21/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elia Data of Texas, LLC (Daniel Francisco Perez)
• Original Assignee: Sandy Craig Kronenberg
• Inventors: Kronenberg, Sandy Craig
• Granted Patent: US 7,113,996 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/237
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/164 at the network layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Methods and systems consistent with the present invention solve the inherent problems with existing transport systems by providing a secured transport engine that enables a user to securely transport data to another user. A method of secure transport and storage on a network that adds to many of today'"'"'s commonly used methods of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC), Digital Certificates and Certificate Authorities (CA)—and dramatically increases the security during transport, redundancy, reliability, while allowing for rapid distribution.

Secure transport can use many widely used protocols such as Ethernet and TCP/IP with slight modifications to allow for the re-direction of data instead of simply delivering data to its destination. This re-direction occurs because perhaps the requirement is not simply to transfer data back and forth between location A and B, but perhaps the requirement is to store data on the network, so at sometime in the future A or B could retrieve this data. Or perhaps A needs to send B some data, but sending that data straight to B is dangerous—along the way to B there are many opportunities for this data to be intercepted, so instead portions this data are routed though many different locations on the way to B.

Claims

1. A secure transport system for transporting secure packets from a first node to a second node, comprising:

a first node that creates secure packets;

a first secure relay that receives secure packets and non secure packets from multiple nodes, wherein the secure relay forward each secure packet to a different secure relay and forwards non-secure packets to destination relays, and wherein the secure relay forwards each secure packet to the second node when a retrieval condition has been indicated; and

a second node that creates a relay condition and receives the secure packets.

2. A method for transmitting packets in a secure format from a first node to a second node, comprising the steps, executed in a data processing system, of:

receiving secure packets in a first secure relay from the first node;

determining if a retrieval condition has been indicated;

forwarding secure packets associated with the retrieval condition to the second node if the retrieval condition has been indicated; and

forwarding the secure packets to another secure relay if the retrieval condition has not been indicated.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

creating secure packets in a first node; and

transmitting the secure packets to random secure relays.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining if a retrieval condition has been indicated further comprises:

receiving a retrieval packet from the second node in the secure relay that indicates the retrieval condition for secure packets; and

forwarding any secure packet associated with the retrieval packet to the second node once the retrieval packet has been received.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining if a secure packet is associated with the retrieval packet by using a key algorithm.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein forwarding the secure packet to the second node further comprises forwarding secure packets associated with the retrieval condition to the second node.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein forwarding the secure packets to another secure relay further comprises:

randomly selecting a second secure relay to forward a secure packet to; and

modifying a header associated with each secure packet to reflect the second secure relay.

8. A method for transmitting a message from a first node to a second node in a secure manner, comprising the steps, executed in a data processing system, of:

creating a set of secure packets associated with the message, wherein secure packets have and associated retrieval key;

forwarding the secure packets to between secure routers so long as the retrieval key is not received; and

forwarding the secure packets to the second node once the retrieval key is received.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

transmitting a retrieval key from the second node to a secure router; and

forwarding the retrieval key to multiple secure routers.

10. A method for receiving a message at a node, wherein the message contains multiple secure packets, comprising the steps of:

transmitting a retrieval key to a secure router from the node, wherein the retrieval key is associated with the multiple secure packets;

receiving from a secure router secure packets associated with the retrieval key;

resequencing the secure packets to recreate the message.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

creating a retrieval key based on the message. This retrieval key could be triggered any number of methods (ex. 1. automatically using a built in time delay created during the creation of the secure packets of data, 2. by a client transmitting a retrieval key to relays, 3. some other event [data integrity check, network outage or insufficient client funds]).

13. The method of claim 12, wherein forwarding the secure packets from one secure relay to another secure relay further comprises:

at the secure relay, replacing a destination header in a secure packet with a random secure relay; and

at the secure relay, replacing a destination header in a secure packet with the destination node when the retrieval key is received.

12. A transport method for transporting secure content from a first node to a second node on a network, comprising:

creating secure packets associated with the secure content at the first node, wherein each secure packet is associated with a retrieval key and a destination address;

transmitting the secure packets to secure relays;

determining if the retrieval key is received;

forwarding the secure packets from one secure relay to another secure relay until the retrieval key is received; and

forwarding the secure packets to the second node when the retrieval key is received.

14. A method of billing for the secure transport service compromising:

creation of secure packets could require a fee to “

enter”

the network of relays creation of a retrieval key could trigger a billing (ex. Invoice generated or charge a credit card) by the service provider/communications carrier, perhaps based on any one or many parameters (time, size, source, destination, tariffs, encryption level, iterations of data).

15. A secure transport system for transporting packets through both secure relays and standard non-secure relays comprising:

transmitting secure packets over a private/semi-private network, wherein the private/semi-private network includes secure transport relays;

transmitting secure packets over a wide area network, wherein the wide area network includes both secure transport relays as well as relays that are not secure transport relays and wherein the secure packets appear to the non secure transport relays as standard IP traffic; and

forwarding the secure packets to a secure transport relay.