METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE MONITORING OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TWO PARTIES

• US 20100174813A1
• Filed: 12/02/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Crisp Thinking (UK) Ltd. (Crisp Thinking Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Crisp Thinking (UK) Ltd. (Crisp Thinking Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hildreth, Adam, Maude, Peter
• Application Number:
  US12/629,756
• Publication Number:
  US 20100174813A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90 Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages

Abstract

A computer implemented method and data processing device for assessing electronically mediated communications is described. A plurality of messages sent by a first party are captured. The content of the messages is processed to determine a quantitative metric reflecting a first property. The behavior over time of the quantitative metric is analyzed to assess the nature of a relationship involving the first party.

Claims

1. A method for the monitoring of relationships between two parties, comprising:

capturing a communication between the two parties;

processing the communication to obtain a set of metrics; and

processing the set of metrics with a stored set of values to establish a nature of the relationship.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing of the communication comprises dividing the communication into a plurality of portions.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of portions represents word phrases.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the relationship is any one of a pedophile grooming relationships, a gambling relationship, an industrial espionage relationship or a financial fraud relationship.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying a third party of the nature of the relationship.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising blocking at least part of the communication.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the communication comprises concatenation of the communication to form a communication segment.

8. An apparatus for monitoring a relationship between two parties, comprising:

a buffer memory for storing a plurality of communications between the two parties;

a communications processor for processing the plurality of communications in order to establish a set of metrics;

a database for storing a set of values; and

an engine for processing with the set of metrics and the set of values to produce an indicator representative of the relationship between the two parties.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising a notifier to notify a third party of the indicator.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising a service control manager to control the processing of the communication between two parties.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising a blocker to block at least part of the communication between the two parties.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising a rules engine.

13. An interface to an application program, wherein the interface is adapted to monitor a plurality of communications between two parties, the interface comprising:

an identifier routine for passing identifiers representing the two parties from the application program to a monitoring system; and

a content routine for passing the content of the plurality of communications between the two parties to the monitoring system, wherein the monitoring system processes the plurality of communications with a set of metrics to establish the nature of the plurality of communications between the two parties.

14. The interface of claim 13, further comprising a metadata routine for passing metadata associated with the plurality of communications to the monitoring system.

15. The interface of claim 13, further comprising a blocking routine for blocking the plurality of communications between the two parties.

16. A listener device for monitoring a plurality of communications between two parties, comprising:

an interceptor for intercepting the plurality of communications between the two parties; and

a transmitter for passing at least identifiers representing the two parties and the content of the plurality of communications to a monitoring system, wherein the monitoring system processes the plurality of communications with a set of metrics to establish the nature of the plurality of communications between the two parties.

17. The listener device of claim 16, wherein the transmitter further sends metadata associated with the plurality of communications to the monitoring system.

18. A method for generating a set of values indicative of a relationship between two parties, comprising:

obtaining at least two training sets with a plurality of documents, each one of the at least two training sets representing an aspect of the relationship between the two parties;

identifying a set of domains representing the relationship;

processing the plurality of documents from each of the at least two training sets to establish a set of values for each one of the domains for each of the at least two training sets;

clustering the set of values for each of the at least two training sets; and

establishing a boundary between the clustered set of values.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the clustering the set of values is carried out in multi-dimensional space.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising a step of reducing the number of dimensions prior to clustering the set of values.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the boundary between the clustered set of values is carried out by discriminant analysis.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein a first one of the training sets represents a pedophile grooming conversation and the second one of the training sets represents a child-child conversation.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein a further one of the training sets represents an adult-adult sexual conversation.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein processing of the plurality of documents comprises determining the word phrases present in the plurality of documents.

25. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having a control logic stored therein for causing a computer to monitor a relationship between two parties, the control logic comprising:

first computer readable program code means for causing the computer to capture a communication between the two parties;

second computer readable program code means for causing the computer to obtain a set of metrics from the communication; and

third computer readable program code means to process the set of metrics with a stored set of values to establish a nature of the relationship between the two parties.