Specialized computing environment for co-analysis of proprietary data

Abstract

A specialized computing environment that includes hardware and data security features to enable competitive organizations to co-analyze proprietary data without revealing the underlying proprietary data to unauthorized users. Proprietary data are stored in volatile memory, which may be automatically erased according to pre-stored criteria. The analysis is performed automatically by a processing unit without human intervention. Analytical results are sanitized (e.g., using data masking) to prevent the analytical result from being tracible to any particular data source. Sanitized analytical results are output without outputting the underlying proprietary data (except to users authorized to validate analytical results). The computing environment is enclosed within a secure enclosure (e.g., a steel box with a lock), does not include any peripheral devices outside the secure enclosure, does not communicate wirelessly, and does not have hardware ports accessible from outside the secure enclosure (except, in some embodiments, a wired connection for a web server).