Verizon Digital Media Services Inc.

Edgecast Networks, Inc.

Openpath Security Inc.

Robert J Peters

Alexander A Kazerani

Amir Reza Khakpour

Derek Shiell

Jayson G Sakata

Samy Kamkar

Lior Elazary

Harkeerat Singh Bedi

David Andrews

Seungyeob Choi

Karthik Sathyanarayana

Hooman Mahyar

Donnevan Scott Yeager

Marcel Eric Schechner Flores

Hayes Kim

Sergio Leonardo Ruiz

Timothy W Hartrick

Cameron Kaye

Reed Morrison

Jonathan DiVincenzo

James Segil

Eric Dyoniziak

Tin Zaw

Hossein Lotfi

Thomren Boyd

The embodiments provide systems and methods for efficiently and accurately differentiating requests directed to uncacheable content from requests directed to cacheable content based on identifiers from the requests. The differentiation occurs without analysis or retrieval of the content being requested. Some embodiments hash identifiers of prior requests that resulted in uncacheable content being served in order to set indices within a bloom filter. The bloom filter then tracks prior uncacheable requests without storing each of the identifiers so that subsequent requests for uncacheable requests can be easily identified based on a hash of the request identifier and set indices of the bloom filter. Some embodiments produce a predictive model identifying uncacheable content requests by tracking various characteristics found in identifiers of prior requests that resulted in uncacheable content being served. Subsequent requests with identifiers having similar characteristics to those of the predictive model can then be differentiated.

Methods and systems for advanced content cacheability determination

The solution distributes the management of stream segments from a central storage cluster to different edge servers that upload stream segments to and receive stream segments from the central storage cluster. Each edge server tracks the stream segments it has uploaded to the central storage cluster as well as the expiration times for those segments. The tracking is performed without a database using a log file and file system arrangement. First-tier directories are created in the file system for different expiration intervals. Entries under the first-tier directories track individual segments that expire within the expiration interval of the first-tier directory with the file system entries being files or a combination of subdirectories and files. Upon identifying expired stream segments, the edge servers instruct the central storage cluster to delete those stream segments. This removes the management overhead from the central storage cluster and implements the distributed management without a database.

Distributed management of live stream storage

Disclosed are systems and methods for performing entry access over two or more networks. The two or more networks are leveraged to accelerate the entry access and provide redundancy. Performance over each of the two or more networks is tracked in order to allow a mobile device to exchange entry access messaging over the particular network providing fastest start-to-unlock time. The mobile device can alternatively exchange the entry access messaging simultaneously over the two or more networks to create a race condition whereby the fastest start-to-unlock time is obtained without monitoring network performance. Performing the entry access messaging exchange over the two or more networks also ensures reliability in the event a particular network is down or congested, an authorization device on a particular network is down or overloaded, a radio of a mobile device communicating over a particular network is disabled or slow performing.

Multi-network entry access systems and methods

Some embodiments provide a multi-tenant over-the-top multicast solution that integrates the per user stream customizability of unicast with the large scale streaming efficiencies of multicast. The solution involves an application, different multicast groups streaming an event with different customizations, and a manifest file or metadata identifying the different groups and customizations. The solution leverages the different multicast groups in order to provide different time shifts in the event stream, different quality level encodings of the event stream, and different secondary content to be included with a primary content stream. The application configured with the manifest file or metadata dynamically switches between the groups in order to customize the experience for a user or user device on which the application executes. Switching from multicast to unicast is also supported to supplement available customizations and for failover.

Multi-tenant over-the-top multicast

The solution is directed to access control systems and verifying proximity of a user to an access point that the user is wirelessly requesting access to. The proximity verification is based on placing proximity hubs adjacent to the different access points. Each proximity hub advertises a different unique identifier that changes periodically over a short-range wireless network and can be detected with a mobile device if the mobile device is physically within a short distance from the proximity hub. The unique identifier changes based on a rolling code. A user is permitted access to a restricted access point in response to the mobile device sending over a different long-range wireless network, the unique identifier advertised from a proximity hub adjacent to a desired access point and user access credentials authenticating access privileges of the user to the desired access point.

Rolling code based proximity verification for entry access

Provided is an office receptionist system formed from a distributed set of system valets and a system concierge. The system valets record and pass human inquiries at various points of ingress and egress to the system concierge. The system concierge parses each inquiry, determines the type of inquiry being made, and further determines whether the inquiry provides sufficient information for the determined inquiry type. The sufficiency of the inquiry is determined from a rule set that further defines different data sources from which the system concierge obtains data elements for generating a response to the inquiry as well as the actions to perform as part of responding to the inquiry. The response is returned to the system valet originating the inquiry for playback thereon.

Virtual office receptionist

Some embodiments modify caching server operation to evict cached content based on a deterministic and multifactor modeling of the cached content. The modeling produces eviction scores for the cached items. The eviction scores are derived from two or more factors of age, size, cost, and content type. The eviction scores determine what content is to be evicted based on the two or more factors included in the eviction score derivation. The eviction scores modify caching server eviction operation for specific traffic or content patterns. The eviction scores further modify caching server eviction operation for granular control over an item's lifetime on cache.

Deterministic multifactor cache replacement

Systems and methods for performing decoupled authorization, whereby authorizing access permissions of a user to a resource is performed separate and independent from authorizing intent of the user to access the resource. Once both authorizations are successfully completed within a specified timeout interval, the access state of the resource is changed, thereby granting the user access to the resource. The decoupled authorizations are independently performed over different networks, in response to different triggers, or by leveraging different hardware. Access to the resource can therefore be provided prior to the user arriving before the resource, with little to no action by the user, and without comprising security as the resources will remain restricted or locked if the either of the user's intent or access permissions cannot be verified.

Decoupled authorization for restricted resource access

Some embodiments provide intelligent predictive stream caching for live, linear, or video-on-demand streaming content using prefetching, segmented caching, and request clustering. Prefetching involves retrieving streaming content segments from an origin server prior to the segments being requested by users. Prefetching live or linear streaming content segments involves continually reissuing requests to the origin until the segments are obtained or a preset retry duration is completed. Prefetching is initiated in response to a first request for a segment falling within a particular interval. Request clustering commences thereafter. Subsequent requests are queued until the segments are retrieved. Segmented caching involves caching segments for one particular interval. Segments falling within a next interval are not prefetched until a first request for one such segment in the next interval is received. Cached segments from the previous interval can be replaced in cache with segments for the current interval, thereby minimizing cache footprint utilization.

Intelligent predictive stream caching

Some embodiments provide techniques for mitigating against layerdistributed denial of service attacks. Some embodiments submit a computational intensive problem, also referred to as a bot detection problem, in response to a user request. Bots that lack sophistication needed to render websites or are configured to not respond to the server response will be unable to provide a solution to the problem and their requests will therefore be denied. If the requesting user is a bot and has the sophisticated to correctly solve the problem, the server will monitor the user request rate. For subsequent requests from that same user, the server can increase the difficulty of the problem when the request rate exceeds different thresholds. In so doing, the problem consumes greater resources of the user, slowing the rate at which the user can submit subsequent requests, and thereby preventing the user from overwhelming the server.

Unobtrusive and dynamic DDoS mitigation

Near field detection using a magnetometer is disclosed. A transmitter may distort magnetometer measurements of Earth's magnetic field by producing rapid but controlled fluctuations to encode a specific message in a manipulated magnetic field. When a mobile device is brought in range of the transmitter, a magnetometer of the mobile device detects that manipulated magnetic field. An application running on the mobile device forms messages based on the magnetometer output. In response to detecting the specific message, the application may execute an action on the mobile device or a remote device. NFC read-based near field detection similarly involves the application accessing an NFC chip of the mobile device, and scanning for one or more particular NFC tags that are read by the NFC chip. In response to detecting a particular NFC tag, the application executes an action on the mobile device or a remote device.

Near field detection of mobile devices

Disclosed are systems and methods for updating a distributed system device with an update that a system controller fragments and propagates to the system device by way of two or more third party clients. The system controller manages client access rights to a service accessible at different distributed system devices. The system controller has first network connectivity with which to remotely distribute different fragments of an update to different clients. Each system device controls access to the service at different a site and has (i) second network connectivity with which the different clients propagate different fragments of the update to the system device upon entering communication range with the system device, (ii) memory storing different sets of fragments for the update based on different times at which the clients propagate the fragments, and (iii) a processor applying the update once all fragments of the update to the memory.

Fragmented updating of a distributed device using multiple clients

Some embodiments provide instantaneous and non-blocking content purging across storage servers of a distributed platform. When a server receives a purge operation, it extracts an identifier from the purge operation. The server then generates a content purge pattern from the identifier and injects the pattern to its configuration. Instantaneous purging is then realized as the server averts access to any cached content identified by the pattern. The purging also occurs in a non-blocking fashion as the physical purge of the content occurs in-line with the server's cache miss operation. The content purge pattern causes the server to respond to a subsequently received content request with a cache miss, whereby the server retrieves the requested content from an origin source, serves the retrieved content to the requesting user, and replaces a previously cached copy of the content that is to be purged with the newly retrieved copy.

Instantaneous non-blocking content purging in a distributed platform

Some embodiments increase throughput across a connection between a host and a client by initializing the congestion window for that connection dynamically using a previously settled value from a prior instance of the connection established between the same or similar endpoints. An initialization agent tracks congestion window values for previously established connections between a host and various clients. For the tracked congestion window values of each monitored connection, the initialization agent stores an address identifying the client endpoint. When establishing a new connection, the initialization agent determines if the new connection is a recurring connection. A new connection is recurring when the new connection client address is similar or related to an address identified for a previous monitored connection. For a recurring connection, the initialization agent initializes the new connection congestion window using a value derived from the tracked congestion window values of the recurring connection.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Monica, CA, United States of America

Robert J Peters