DNS Filtering for VPN Traffic Security and User Awareness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current VPN technologies lack an efficient method to block potentially unwanted traffic from trackers, third-party cookies, and malicious websites, and do not provide users with aggregated information about filtering activities.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a system and method within VPN infrastructure to filter potentially unwanted traffic by using DNS filtering, where the VPN server resolves domain names and returns error messages for blocked sites, and provides users with aggregated data on filtering activities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If DNS filtering is implemented to block potentially unwanted traffic, then traffic security is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a DNS filtering system that acts as an intermediary between the user's device and the internet. The VPN server's DNS resolver intercepts DNS queries, checks them against blocked domain lists, and prevents resolution of malicious or unwanted domains. This intermediary approach blocks unwanted traffic at the DNS level without requiring complex inspection of actual data packets, thus improving security while maintaining manageable system complexity.
2Loss of information
If detailed filtering data is collected and reported to users, then user awareness is improved, but data processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential filtering information needed for user awareness - specifically, the counts of blocked domains and blocked IP addresses. Rather than processing and reporting all raw filtering data, the system extracts aggregated statistics that inform users about filtering activity without requiring extensive data processing. This selective extraction provides user awareness while minimizing data processing requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method to filter potentially unwanted traffic from trackers, third-party cookies, malicious websites or other sources and present the aggregated results of said filtering to the VPN user. One of the embodiments enables a VPN user to opt-in or opt-out from the filtering activities while being able to access the aggregated information about filtering. In another embodiment, the user can choose to customize the filtering parameters to add or remove specific targets from the filtering policies.