Hardware Content-Checker for Nested Document Structures
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content-checking technologies face challenges in handling complex, nested data structures in digitally encoded documents, making it difficult to implement a highly trusted and high-performance solution, especially when dealing with embedded content of different types, as they are typically software-based and struggle with recursive and embedded data handling.
Innovation Solution
The approach involves flattening structured documents into individual parts for hardware-based content-checking, allowing for parallel processing and efficient checking of all embedded documents, with the option to modify or remove problematic parts, and using a separate scheduler to manage type information and data checkers, ensuring security and performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If content-checking is implemented in software to handle complex nested data structures, then the checker can handle recursive and embedded content, but the complexity of the checker increases and trustworthiness decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces software-based content-checking with hardware-based content-checking. The hardware checker processes document data through dedicated circuitry that flattens nested structures and performs content validation, eliminating the complexity and trust issues associated with software interpreters while maintaining the ability to handle complex document formats.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the content-checking process into distinct hardware components: a flattener module that decomposes nested document structures into linear sequences, and a checker module that validates the flattened data against security policies. This segmentation simplifies the overall system architecture and improves verifiability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If content-checking is implemented in software, then embedded content can be checked recursively, but processing speed decreases compared to hardware implementation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces software-based content-checking with hardware-based content-checking. The hardware checker processes document data through dedicated circuitry that flattens nested structures and performs content validation, eliminating the complexity and trust issues associated with software interpreters while maintaining the ability to handle complex document formats.
3Productivity
If recursive content-checking strategy is used to work on embedded data immediately, then processing is fast, but the content-checker becomes more complex and harder to trust
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces software-based content-checking with hardware-based content-checking. The hardware checker processes document data through dedicated circuitry that flattens nested structures and performs content validation, eliminating the complexity and trust issues associated with software interpreters while maintaining the ability to handle complex document formats.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies a flattening transformation to document data before content validation occurs. This preliminary action converts complex nested structures into simple linear sequences, making the subsequent content-checking process simpler, faster, and more suitable for hardware implementation while maintaining security effectiveness.
4Productivity
If document data is flattened into linear sequences before checking, then hardware-based checking becomes feasible and faster, but the original document structure must be preserved for output
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces software-based content-checking with hardware-based content-checking. The hardware checker processes document data through dedicated circuitry that flattens nested structures and performs content validation, eliminating the complexity and trust issues associated with software interpreters while maintaining the ability to handle complex document formats.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
AI summary
Methods and apparatus for network security content-checking, in particular simplifying the critical element of a content-checker so that it can be trusted and implemented in hardware logic. A method comprises determining whether a digitally encoded document contains any embedded documents; content-checking, by means of at least one hardware-implemented content-checker, at least one of the embedded documents separately from those parts of the digitally encoded document within which it was embedded; and releasing a version of the digitally encoded document responsive to the content-checking.