Lawful Interception Handover Interface Signaling
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing lawful interception systems face challenges in efficiently processing intercepted data due to the service-specific definition of communication sessions, leading to increased complexity, inefficiency, and cost for law enforcement agencies.
Innovation Solution
Enhancing the handover interface for lawful interception by incorporating signaling that indicates which intercepted application-layer control messages belong to application-layer control sessions that are linked, allowing law enforcement agencies to discriminate messages based on coarser granularity sessions without additional processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If service-specific communication session definitions are used in lawful interception systems, then each service can be precisely identified, but law enforcement agencies face increased processing complexity and cost to discriminate intercepted data at the desired granularity level
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a network mediation device as an intermediary between the communication network and law enforcement devices. This mediator performs the complex task of correlating service-specific communication sessions into a unified view, allowing law enforcement agencies to query intercepted data at their desired granularity level without performing the complex correlation processing themselves. The mediation device translates between service-specific session definitions and a unified communication session view.
2Loss of information
If service-specific communication session definitions are used, then accurate service identification is achieved, but additional processing is required at law enforcement devices to deduce linked sessions
Solution Approach 1:
The network mediation device performs the session correlation processing in advance, before the law enforcement device receives the intercepted data. By pre-correlating service-specific sessions into unified communication sessions and storing this correlation information, the system eliminates the need for law enforcement devices to perform time-consuming deduction processing when analyzing intercepted data.
3Measurement precision
If fine-grained service-specific session identification is implemented, then precise data discrimination is possible, but law enforcement agencies incur higher costs for additional processing
Solution Approach 1:
The network mediation device serves as a cost-effective intermediary that centralizes the complex correlation processing functionality. Instead of requiring each law enforcement device to implement expensive fine-grained session identification and correlation capabilities, the mediation device provides this functionality centrally, allowing multiple law enforcement devices to benefit from the same correlation infrastructure.
Data Source
AI summary
A network mediation device (32) in a communication network (10) receives application-layer control messages (24) intercepted in the communication network (10) as part of a lawful interception service. Each of the application-layer control messages (24) received is configurable to include (i) a session identity field (28) indicating an identity of an application-layer control session (26) to which the application-layer control message belongs: and (ii) one or more linking fields (30) that link the identified application-layer control session (26) with another application-layer control session (26). The network mediation device (32) sends. over a handover interface (33) from the network mediation device (32) towards a law enforcement device (16), the application-layer control messages (24) and signaling (34) indicating which application-layer control messages (24) belong to application-layer control sessions (26) that are linked to one another.