Redirect Cloaking System for Data Leakage Prevention

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing data processing systems face issues with unwanted data leakage during redirects in network traffic, as marketers and aggregators use redirects to track user traffic, leading to potential competitive advantages for unauthorized parties if sensitive data is exposed.

Innovation Solution

Implementing a redirect cloaking system that intercepts and obscures redirect chains between client devices and tracking servers, ensuring that only the final redirect or resource is returned to the client, thereby hiding intermediate steps and sensitive information from unauthorized access.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If redirect chains are used for tracking user traffic, then marketers can monitor and analyze user behavior, but sensitive data leaks to unauthorized parties

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetracking functionalityVSAvoiddata leakage

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a redirect cloaking system that acts as an intermediary between the client device and tracking servers. This system intercepts redirect responses and selectively blocks them from reaching the client device while maintaining the tracking functionality. The cloaking system receives the original request, processes the redirect chain internally, and returns only the final destination without exposing intermediate tracking redirects to unauthorized parties.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Difficulty of detecting and measuring

If intermediate redirect steps are exposed to clients, then debugging and transparency are improved, but security and data protection deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveredirect transparencyVSAvoidunauthorized access to sensitive data

Core Design Contradiction:

Difficulty of detecting and measuringVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by differentiating between what information should be visible to different parties. The redirect cloaking system processes the complete redirect chain internally but selectively reveals only the final destination to the client device. This allows the system to maintain full visibility of intermediate steps for debugging and monitoring purposes while preventing unauthorized access to sensitive tracking data from the client side.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

3Loss of information

If all redirect responses are returned to client device, then full redirect chain visibility is achieved, but network traffic and processing overhead increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveredirect information completenessVSAvoidnetwork traffic

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts only the essential final destination information from the complete redirect chain and returns it to the client device. The redirect cloaking system processes the full redirect chain internally to maintain tracking functionality but removes intermediate redirect responses from the traffic sent to the client device. This reduces network overhead and processing requirements while preserving the necessary tracking capabilities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS12001590B2Preventing unwanted data leakage in data network traffic using cloaked redirects

Publication Date: 2024.06.04 NEPTUNEADS LLC

AI summary

A redirect cloaking system (RCS) is provided. The RCS receives, from a client computing device, an original request to access a resource from another computing device, and cloaks at least a portion of a redirect chain associated with servicing the original request such that at least a first portion of redirect responses of the redirect chain are not returned to the client computing device. The RCS returns at least one of a second portion of redirect responses of the redirect chain or the resource to the client computing device without exposing the first portion of redirect responses to the client computing device.