Pre-compression Encoding for Certificate Revocation List Transfer

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Solution Overview

Problem

In PKI environments, the transfer of large certificate revocation lists (CRLs) consumes significant bandwidth and processing resources, as existing methods only provide marginal reductions in data size, leading to complex management and inefficiencies.

Innovation Solution

Implementing pre-compression encoding of CRLs using lossless compression techniques such as Burrows-Wheeler transform, Lempel-Ziv, LZW, Huffman coding, and arithmetic coding, while maintaining an uncompressed header for efficient transfer and decompression, reducing bandwidth requirements and processing time.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of energy

If traditional CRL transfer methods are used, then data integrity is maintained, but bandwidth consumption increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvebandwidth consumptionVSAvoiddata size

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of energyVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies pre-compression encoding to CRL data before transfer. The CRL is compressed using algorithms such as Burrows-Wheeler transform, Lempel-Ziv, LZW, Huffman coding, or arithmetic coding prior to transmission, thereby reducing the data size that needs to be transmitted over the network while maintaining data integrity through lossless compression techniques.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Loss of energy

If compression techniques are applied to CRL, then bandwidth consumption is reduced, but processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvebandwidth consumptionVSAvoidprocessing time

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of energyVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The compression is performed in advance (pre-compression) before the CRL transfer, so that during the actual transfer and validation process, the compressed data is already available and only decompression is needed. This shifts the heavy compression processing to a preliminary stage, reducing the time impact during critical transfer and validation operations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent maintains both compressed and uncompressed versions of the CRL data. The compressed version is used for transfer to save bandwidth, while the uncompressed version is kept locally for rapid validation without requiring real-time decompression, thus eliminating the processing time penalty during validation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

3Loss of energy

If existing marginal compression methods are used, then some bandwidth is saved, but management complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvebandwidth consumptionVSAvoidmanagement complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of energyVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent maintains parallel copies of the CRL in both compressed and uncompressed formats. This allows the system to use efficient compression algorithms for transfer while keeping the uncompressed version readily available for validation, avoiding the need to implement complex real-time decompression and validation logic in the client software.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

Data Source

PatentUS8458457B2Method and system for certificate revocation list pre-compression encoding

Publication Date: 2013.06.04 RED HAT INC

AI summary

Embodiments of the present invention provide a pre-compression encoding capability for encoding a CRL, such as an X.509 CRL, stored as a file, data structure or data object in a computer system having a certification authority (CA) and a security client prior to compression. An exemplary method provides for accessing the CRL contents and performing an encoding procedure.