Real-time asynchronous event aggregation systems

• US 8,849,909 B2
• Filed: 11/27/2007
• Issued: 09/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Farmer, F. Randall, Mohsenzadeh, Mohammad, Morningstar, Chip, Sample, Neal J.
• Primary Examiner(s): VOSTAL, ONDREJ C
• Application Number:
  US11/945,911
• Publication Number:
  US 20090013041A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,499 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1057 involving pre-assessment of levels of reputation of peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A real-time asynchronous event aggregation system, method, and network device are configured to capture real-time asynchronous events, and to pass them as input to one or more aggregation engines to determine a reputation for a target. The aggregation engine(s) may then send out notifications where a reputation category changes for a target, indicating that an action may be taken to inhibit spam messages from the target, highlight a display of content from the target, or the like. As such, the event-driven aggregation engines may be designed to capture real-time asynchronous events, such as reputation reports for a wide variety of activities, including, but not limited to spam and/or not-spam messages, determining a reputation on a posting of comments to a movie, a blog posting, a play list posting, or the like. In one embodiment, a reputation of the sender of the reputation event may also be determined.

Claims

1. A network device, comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over a network; and

a processor that is operative to perform actions, including;

employing a plurality of different aggregation engines, each aggregation engine configured to determine reputation of respective type of target;

selecting, one of the plurality of different aggregation engines based on the type of the target;

receiving, at the selected aggregation engine, at least one reputation event from a user of a target from within a plurality of reputation events generated for the different types of targets, the reputation event including at least a statement about a value associated with the target the target being different from the user;

determining a reputation of the user based on a subset of the plurality of reputation events generated by other users for the target;

determining, by the selected aggregation engine, a reputation score for the associated target, by performing at least a running reputation determination that includes the reputation of the user, the selected aggregation engine asynchronously operating on the received at least one reputation event independent of waiting for another reputation event from the plurality of reputation events;

displaying the reputation score for the associated target, the reputation score is useable to determine a collective value for the target based in part on receiving the plurality of reputation events over time; and

modifying the reputation of the user based on an appeal of the reputation score by the target.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein the reputation events indicate at least one of a vote for a product, web based user generated content, or whether a message is SPAM.

3. The network device of claim 1, wherein the running reputation determination includes a running average computation using previously received reputation events from the plurality of reputation events.

4. The network device of claim 1, wherein the at least one reputation event is associated with a vote from the user indicating whether a message is or is not SPAM, and wherein the reputation score indicates whether a sender of the message is a SPAMMER.

5. The network device of claim 1, wherein the reputation event is associated with a rating by the user of a target movie, and the reputation score indicates a resulting score for the target movie based on input reputation events from a plurality of different users.

6. The network device of claim 1, wherein the reputation event comprises information indicating a source of the reputation event, a claim or value judgment about the target, and the associated target.

7. The network device of claim 1, wherein at least one reputation event is associated with a message sent to a SPAM trap address configured and arranged such that only SPAM messages are sent to the SPAM trap address, and wherein each reputation event from the SPAM trap address indicates that the message sender is a SPAMMER.

8. A method operating on at least one computer device for use in managing reputation scores for a target over a network, comprising:

employing a plurality of different aggregation engines, each aggregation engine configured to determine reputation of respective type of target;

receiving at least one reputation event from a user of a target indicating a reputation vote for the target;

selecting, one of the plurality of different aggregation engines based on the type of the target;

dispatching the received at least one reputation event to the selected aggregation engine;

determining a reputation of the user based on a plurality of reputation events generated by other users for the target;

dispatching to the selected aggregation engine the reputation of the user;

determining in real-time, by the selected aggregation engine, asynchronously to another received reputation event, a score for a reputation of the target based on the received reputation event and the reputation of the user;

providing the determined reputation score for the target to a repository that can be queried to display on a computer screen a running reputation score for the target; and

modifying the reputation of the user based on an appeal of the reputation score by the target.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the reputation vote indicates whether the target is considered to as a message SPAMMER or not a message SPAMMER.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the target is at least one of a message received by the user, or content reviewed by the user.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the selected aggregation engine is configured and arranged to determine asynchronously, absent waiting for another received reputation event, at least one of a count for whether the target is a SPAMMER, a count for whether the target is not a SPAMMER, or a count of messages received by a SPAM trap address indicating that the target is a SPAMMER.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the reputation score for the target is based on a computation using running computations for positive values associated with the target and negative values associated with the target.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the received reputation event is self-describing in that the reputation event includes at least a method specification indicating the aggregation engine to be employed, a source of the reputation event, the reputation vote, an identifier associated with the target, and a time stamp indicating when the reputation event was sent by the source or received by a dispatcher.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving from the selected aggregation engine an event notification indicating when a reputation score crosses a threshold value; and

if the reputation score indicates that the target is un-trusted, performing an action to at least one of selectively inhibiting a display of content from the target, or electively blocking another message from the target to at least one user.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the reputation of the user is modified when the one reputation vote from the user indicates that the target is a spammer and a result of the appeal changes the target'"'"'s reputation from that of a spammer to not a spammer.

16. A system for use in determining a target reputation over a network, comprising:

network device executing thereon a dispatcher service configured to receive a plurality of events associated with a reputation of a target; and

another network device having executing thereon a plurality of different target reputation engines, each aggregation engine configured to determine reputation of respective type of target, the plurality of aggregation engines are configured to receive the plurality of events and to perform actions, including;

receiving a reputation event from a user of a target indicating at least one of a vote indicating a positive reputation for the target or a negative reputation for the target;

determining a reputation of the user based on a subset of the plurality of events, the subset of events relating to votes indicative of positive or negative reputation of the target generated by other users for the target;

selecting, one of the plurality of different aggregation engines based on the type of the target;

asynchronously, in real-time, determining a reputation for the target by the selected target reputation engine based on a running average determined from the reputation of the user and the received reputation event;

using the determined reputation for the target to classify the target;

if the target falls within a determined classification, performing at least one of preventing a message being sent by the target to the user, or inhibiting a display of content received from the target; and

modifying the reputation of the user based in part on the determined reputation for the target and an appeal request of the determined reputation by the target.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein at least one reputation event received indicates that the target has sent a message to a SPAM trap address.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the target is classified into a classification indicating that the target has the negative reputation, a suspect reputation, or the positive reputation.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the target reputation engine is configured to perform actions, further including:

if the target falls within another determined classification indicating the target has a positive reputation, providing a reward to the target.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein modifying the reputation of the user further comprises:

comparing a plurality of reputation events each received from one of different users within a plurality of other users to the determined reputation for the target and further to the received reputation event from the user; and

based on the comparisons modifying the reputation of the user.