Decoupled Custom Event System Using Ephemeral Tokens for Secure Audio Streaming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing digital audio streaming services face challenges in securing user data and privacy, as unsecured communications between entities can lead to information leakage, compromising personally identifiable information, and new legislation mandates stricter data protection.
Innovation Solution
A decoupled custom event system using ephemeral tokens is implemented, where a session identifier and timestamp are hashed to generate a token, allowing for secure transmission and encryption of content item identifiers, ensuring that only the correct timestamp can decrypt the token, thus protecting user information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If unsecured communications are used between services, then ease of operation and system simplicity is improved, but data security and privacy protection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces ephemeral tokens as intermediaries between services. These tokens temporarily represent user sessions and are passed between services instead of directly sharing personally identifiable information. The token includes an encrypted session identifier that can be decrypted only by the originating service, enabling secure communication without exposing sensitive data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs ephemeral tokens that are short-lived and single-use. Each token is generated for a specific session and expires after use or after a short time period. This disposable nature ensures that even if tokens are intercepted, they cannot be reused to compromise long-term security, and no persistent sensitive information is stored across services.
2Adaptability or versatility
If personally identifiable information is stored across multiple services, then service functionality and adaptability is improved, but vulnerability to attacks and information compromise increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts personally identifiable information from the communication flow between services. Instead of storing or transmitting actual user identifiers across multiple services, the system uses ephemeral tokens that contain encrypted session identifiers. The actual personally identifiable information remains isolated in the user profile service and is never exposed to other services.
Solution Approach 2:
Ephemeral tokens serve as intermediaries that enable services to identify and track user sessions without accessing personally identifiable information. The token system allows services to function with anonymous session identifiers, reducing the attack surface while maintaining service functionality.
3Productivity
If user identifiers are tracked across sessions, then user activity tracking and personalization capability is improved, but user anonymity and privacy protection deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic session identifiers through ephemeral tokens that change with each user session. Instead of using static user identifiers that persist across sessions, the system generates new encrypted session identifiers for each session. This allows the system to track user activities within a session while preventing cross-session tracking and maintaining user anonymity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method comprises receiving a session identifier from a streaming system that identifies a user session with the streaming system. The method further includes receiving a first message from a streaming system that is based on a token that is generated based on a combination of the session identifier and a timestamp at which an insertable content item was presented to the user in a content stream by the streaming system. The first message is decrypted using a plurality of timestamps that are within a range of a current time. An identifier is determined for the insertable content item based on the decrypted message. A second message is transmitted to an enabling system, the message including instructions for execution by the enabling system to execute one or more operations with the identified insertable content item.