Compact Reputation Tracking via Running Rates
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional reputation tracking systems face challenges in storing and managing large amounts of data for tracking the reputations of dispersed electronic content sources, such as IP addresses and domains, due to storage limitations both on server and client sides.
Innovation Solution
A compact reputation tracking system uses running rates of content origination to determine the trustworthiness of sources, aggregating information over time and calculating reputation characterization percentages to decide whether to block or allow incoming content, thereby reducing storage needs by using compact data representations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional reputation tracking systems store detailed reputation data for each source (IP address, domain, email address), then tracking accuracy and reliability improve, but storage requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential reputation assessment data needed for security decisions, storing merely the compact reputation score (e.g., 50,000 malicious messages in 6 months) rather than complete detailed records of all communications. This extraction of critical information maintains tracking reliability while dramatically reducing storage requirements from potential billions of records to manageable compact representations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms detailed reputation data into a compact parameter representation - converting extensive communication histories into single reputation scores or rates (e.g., messages per time period). By changing the data representation from detailed records to aggregated parameters, the system achieves both storage efficiency and reliable reputation assessment.
2Adaptability or versatility
If reputation databases are expanded to track dispersed sources like botnets and compromised credentials, then coverage and detection capability improve, but database size and processing complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple reputation assessment criteria into a single unified reputation score or rate. Instead of maintaining separate tracking systems for different types of dispersed sources (botnets, compromised credentials, spam sources), the system combines all these assessments into compact reputation representations, reducing database complexity while maintaining comprehensive coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The compact reputation tracking system serves multiple functions simultaneously - tracking botnets, compromised credentials, spam sources, and other dispersed malicious sources using the same unified approach. This universal method allows the system to adapt to various threat types without requiring separate specialized databases for each source type.
Data Source
AI summary
The reputations of content sources are tracked as running rates of content origination. Information concerning content origination from multiple sources is received and aggregated. The aggregated information is used to calculate running rates of content origination. An initial running rate of content origination can be calculated based on the number of detections of originations from a given source over a period of time. Running rates can be updated based on additional detections from the source since the last update. As incoming electronic content is received from specific sources, the running rates from given sources are used to determine whether to block or allow the incoming content. Reputation characterization percentages can be calculated based on the running rates, and incoming content from a specific source can be blocked if a reputation characterization percentage is above a given threshold.