Aol Inc.

Craig E Despeaux

Lorin R Sutton, Jr

Michael K Adamski

Walter Scott Hall, Iii

An unwanted message may be identified by inspecting the payload portion of a message being communicated, comparing the characteristics of the payload portion with stored data indicating characteristics of other messages, and identifying a security condition based on a comparison of the message inspected. The characteristics inspected may include the payload portion of a message or the whole message when the characteristics are being compared against messages being exchanged on more than one local exchanging system. Furthermore, the characteristics of messages may be tracked for comparison against the characteristics of future messages. A threshold number of those characteristics may subsequently implicate a hostile security condition, even if a current comparison of these characteristics does not reach the threshold necessary to implicate a hostile security condition.

Identifying unwanted electronic messages

Systems and techniques for improving the performance of a network system having one or more sending systems and one or more receiving systems may include determining the digital signature of a received digital file, comparing the digital signature against stored digital signatures of digital files accessible to the receiving system, and determining whether to store the received digital file and/or a location identifier for the stored version of the received digital file based on a result of the comparison.

Reducing duplication of files on a network

Systems and techniques for improving the performance of a network system having one or more sending systems and one or more receiving systems may include determining the digital signature of a received embedded digital resource, comparing the digital signature against stored digital signatures of digital resources accessible to the receiving system, and determining whether to store the received embedded digital resource and/or a location identifier for the stored version of the received embedded digital resource based on a result of the comparison.

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Reston, VA, United States of America

Craig E Despeaux