Anonymous Security Tokens for Authenticated Content Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Content servers are unable to determine whether a computing device requesting content is associated with a malicious entity or a legitimate user, leading to potential cyberattacks and exposure of user information.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system where content servers maintain confidence scores for computing devices based on browsing activity and provide security tokens with group signatures, allowing devices to authenticate without revealing identifying information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the device or user attempts to provide authentication information to verify legitimacy, then the ability to distinguish legitimate users from malicious parties is improved, but the computing device may unintentionally reveal more information about the computing device or domain than desired
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary that generates authentication tokens on behalf of the computing device. This server mediator handles the authentication process, allowing the device to prove its legitimacy without directly exposing its identifying information to the content provider. The server acts as a trusted third party that verifies device characteristics and issues tokens that confirm authenticity while preserving device anonymity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the authentication function from the computing device itself and relocates it to a separate authentication server. By taking out the authentication logic and credentials from the device, the system enables verification of device legitimacy without requiring the device to directly provide sensitive identifying information to content providers. The authentication characteristics are extracted and verified by the intermediary server instead.
2Reliability
If authentication mechanisms are implemented to prevent cyberattacks, then security against malicious entities is improved, but the complexity of the system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates simplified copies of authentication credentials in the form of tokens that contain encrypted authentication data. Instead of implementing complex real-time verification of device characteristics at every content request, the system creates token copies that encapsulate the authentication state. These tokens can be verified efficiently by content providers without requiring them to implement complex authentication logic, thus reducing system complexity while maintaining security.
3Reliability
If the computing device provides identifying information for authentication, then the ability to verify legitimacy is improved, but the anonymity of the computing device deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The authentication server acts as an intermediary that receives device characteristics from the computing device, verifies legitimacy, and issues tokens without the device needing to directly disclose identifying information to content providers. The intermediary handles the sensitive information exchange, preserving device anonymity while enabling verification.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts identifying information and authentication logic from the computing device and relocates it to a separate authentication server. The device provides characteristics to the server, which then issues tokens that prove legitimacy without requiring the device to maintain or directly provide identifying information to content providers, thus preserving anonymity.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present disclosure provides systems and methods for authenticated control of content delivery. The method includes receiving a request for an item of content from a computing device, the request comprising a security token associated with the computing device and an identifier of a group of domains, identifying the group of domains from the identifier, and retrieving a security key associated with the group of domains. The method further includes decrypting a signature of the security token, identifying an authentication string, determining that the authentication string matches a server authentication string, and identifying characteristics of the security token. The characteristics of the security token include a confidence score. The method further includes comparing the confidence score of the security token to a threshold, determining that the confidence score does not exceed the threshold, and preventing transmission of content to the computing device.