Method and a system for information identification

Abstract

A method for detecting an information item within an information sequence obtained from a digital medium, said information item comprising any one of a specified set of prestored information items, comprising: transforming each of the set of prestored information items into a respective representation, in accordance with a predetermined transformation format; transforming the information sequence obtained from the digital medium, in accordance with the transformation format; and determining the presence of one or more of the prestored information items within the transformed information sequence, utilizing the respective representation, wherein the information items are divided into sets, and applying a security policy that depends on the number of detected information items that belong to the same set.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION / S[0001]This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 815,764 filed on Apr. 2, 2004, which claims the benefit of priority under 35 USC 119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 459,372 filed on Apr. 2, 2003. The contents of all of the above applications are incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to the field of analysis of digital information. More specifically, the present invention deals with methods for fast identification of information items within electronic traffic and digital media.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]The information and knowledge created and accumulated by organizations and businesses are most valuable assets. As such, managing and keeping the information and the knowledge inside the organization and restricting its distribution outside is of paramount importance for almost any organization, government entity or business an...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and a system that facilitates fast and efficient detection and identification of a large number of previously stored information and data items, such as words, key-phrases, credit-card numbers, social security numbers, names, addresses, email address, account numbers, and other strings within electronic traffic.

[0094]The present invention successfully addresses the shortcomings of the presently known configurations by providing a method and system that facilitates fast and efficient detection and identification of a large number of previously stored information and data items, which can efficiently serve digital privacy and confidentiality enforcement as well as knowledge management.

Problems solved by technology

Digital content can be easily copied and distributed (e.g., via e-mail, instant messaging, peer-to-peer networks, FTP and web-sites), which greatly increase hazards such as business espionage and data leakage.

In particular, the existence of covert channels of information, which can serves conspiracies to commit fraud or other illegal activities, pose severe risk from both legal and business perspectives.

However, and the usage of such methods may become prohibitively slow when the number of stored information items is large.

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