Message rendering for identification of content features

• US 7,483,947 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2003
• Issued: 01/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rounthwaite, Robert L., Goodman, Joshua T., Heckerman, David E., Starbuck, Bryan T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne; Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): Higa; Brendan Y
• Application Number:
  US10/428,649
• Publication Number:
  US 20040221062A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,097 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-207, 709223-226, 709/247, 709/225, 726 22- 25, 382232-253, 713187-194
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

Architecture for detecting and removing obfuscating clutter from the subject and/or body of a message, e.g., e-mail, prior to filtering of the message, to identify junk messages commonly referred to as spam. The technique utilizes the powerful features built into an HTML rendering engine to strip the HTML instructions for all non-substantive aspects of the message. Pre-processing includes pre-rendering of the message into a final format, which final format is that which is displayed by the rendering engine to the user. The final format message is then converted to a text-only format to remove graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing that cannot be rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters. The result is essentially to reduce each message to its common denominator essentials so that the junk mail filter can view each message on an equal basis.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates message filtering, comprising:

A computer readable storage medium comprising;

a pre-rendering component that receives a message and renders the message into a first format, the received message including one or more compressed images, for each of the one or more compressed images a first hash is generated, wherein the one or more compressed images are rendered in an uncompressed mode, for each of the one or more compressed images rendered in the uncompressed mode a second hash is generated, the first and second hashes are compared to determine if the message contains junk indicia;

a converting component that converts the message in the first format into a character-only message and

a filtering component that processes the character-only message for predetermined content and routes the received message based upon the predetermined content.

2. The system of claim 1, the pre-rendering component is a display engine, such that the message of the first format is that format which is displayed to a user.

3. The system of claim 1, the pre-rendering component is a display engine that renders the message into the first format by at least one of removing comments, applying decoration, skipping invalid decoration commands, and applying final positioning.

4. The system of claim 1, the converting component removing from the message of the first format at least one of graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters.

5. The system of claim 4, at least one of the graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters, is utilized to affect a weight of a word of the message in a filter.

6. The system of claim 1, the message analyzed for at least one of embedded tags and comments.

7. The system of claim 1, the message rendered and analyzed for raw HTML features.

8. The system of claim 1, the character-only format is a text-only format.

9. The system of claim 8, the message in text-only format is processed to analyze a word or plurality of words for at least one of font size, brightness, special formatting, and placement in a link.

10. The system of claim 9, the word or plurality of words removed from the message when one or more of the word(s) or one or more characters of the word(s) are invisible or substantially invisible.

11. The system of claim 1, the message is e-mail.

12. A computer including the system of claim 1.

13. A network having a filtering system according to claim 1.

14. The system of claim 1, the message including a plurality of chained images that are decompressed for analysis of junk indicia.

15. The system of claim 1, the message including one or more images for each of which there is a hash generated, which hash is used to determine if the message contains junk indicia.

16. The system of claim 1, the pre-rendering component rendering multiple images by decompressing the multiple images next to each other for analysis of junk indicia.

17. The system of claim 1, the converting component performing word segmentation of the character-only message based upon color and/or visibility of at least one of a character, word and text of the message.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a non-text decoding component for decoding non-text-encoded portions of the message.

19. The system of claim 18, the non-text decoding component is a MIME decoder.

20. The system of claim 1, the pre-rendering component for processing images to ascertain if the image is junk-related by determining at least one of the image size, image dimension, image type, image location, number of images, and area consumed by a plurality of the images.

21. A method of filtering a message, comprising:

pre-rendering the message into a final format, the message including one or more compressed images, for each of the one or more compressed images a first hash is generated, wherein the one or more compressed images are rendered in an uncompressed mode, for each of the one or more compressed images rendered in the uncompressed mode a second hash is generated, the first and second hashes are compared to determine if the message contains junk indicia;

converting the message of the final format into a text-only message;

processing the text-only message for predetermined content; and

routing the message based upon the predetermined content.

22. The method of claim 21, the message pre-rendered with a display engine that renders the message into the final format by at least one of removing comments, applying decoration, skipping invalid decoration commands, and applying final positioning.

23. The method of claim 21, the message of the final format converted by removing at least one of graphics, color, non-text decoration, and spacing not rendered as ASCII-style or Unicode-style characters.

24. The method of claim 21, the text-only message processed by further analyzing the text-only message for predetermined content, which if present, the message is routed to be deleted, and if not present, the message is routed to an inbox.

25. The method of claim 21, the text-only message processed by further analyzing the text-only message to adjust a weighting parameter associated one or more words of the text-only message, the weighting parameter based upon character features of the word, which character features include at least one of size, color, font, formatting, and inclusion of the text within a link.

26. The method of claim 21, the message analyzed for at least one of embedded tags, comments, and raw HTML features.

27. The method of claim 21, the text-only message processed with a filtering component to filter for the predetermined content.

28. The method of claim 27, the filtering component further including a weighting component that adjusts a weighting parameter associated with at least one of a character and a word, of the text-only message, the weighting parameter based upon a corresponding feature of the character or the word.

29. The method of claim 28, the feature of the character or word including at least one of size, color, font, formatting, and inclusion of the character within a link.

30. The method of claim 21, further comprising a MIME decoding component for decoding MIME encoded portions of the message.

31. The method of claim 30, the output of the MIME decoding component passed to a junk filter as an input.

32. The method of claim 21, further comprising processing images to ascertain if the image is junk-related by determining at least one of the image size, image dimension, image type, image location, number of images, and area consumed by a plurality of the images.

33. The method of claim 21, wherein rendered text and unrendered text is paused to a junk filter.