Patent Issued for System, Method, And Recording Medium For Preventing Back Propogation Of Data Protection (USPTO 10,708,234)

2020 JUL 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, New York, United States) has been issued patent number 10,708,234, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Adams, Samuel Scott (Rutherfordton, NC); Keohane, Susann Marie (Austin, TX); Kraemer, James R. (Santa Fe, NM); Linton, Jeb R. (Manassas, VA).

This patent was filed on March 24, 2016 and was published online on July 20, 2020.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “The present invention relates generally to a data protection system, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a method, system, and third-party intermediary for a trusted, secure, and private transfer of data between two parties that can identify that correct content has been delivered but without a back propagation of private information between the two parties.

“Twenty percent of the American population is estimated to have a recognized disability and many others have cognitive limitations that require special assistance or a modified interface when using some of the most basic necessities in today’s society. These persons require web-based content that has been reduced in complexity in terms of sentence structures, word selection, and sentence length or otherwise adapted to assist their use of the web-based content. Beyond certain classifiable disabilities, persons may also have other visual problems like cataracts, growing deafness, or loss of fine motor skills to operate a computer mouse or the like. Adjustments are required for all their web-based interactions with government (Social Security, Medicare, Health Care Exchange, etc.), financial institutions (banks, 401K investments), health insurance companies, and health care providers and may have significant and growing physical, mental, and cognitive limitations.

“Due to the necessity of an adapted interface or the like when using web-based services, conventional techniques have considered storing user preferences and limitations in a central cloud infrastructure (i.e., a library of personal profiles or the like). The conventional techniques have proposed to provide the institution providing the web-based service with the user profiles and then the institution will know the disability of the user and provide the user with an appropriate modified interface to utilize the web-based service. That is, the conventional techniques employ a user-to-user exchange of data. As a result, personal information must be disclosed to use the web-based services.

“Thus, the conventional techniques have a technical problem in that the conventional techniques require disclosure of disabilities to an institution in order for the institution to provide a modified web-based service adapted to be accessible even with the disabilities of the user. The personal profile being accessible by institutions may not only violate laws, but there is significant user concern about having one central organization with access to physical limitations. Access to cognitive capabilities, especially declining cognitive capabilities of the aging, may be an even larger concern than physical limitations.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In one aspect of the invention and in view of the above drawbacks of the conventional techniques, the inventors have considered a technical solution to the technical problem by providing a third party intermediary and a data protection system capable of securing disability information about a user and preventing an institution providing a web-based service from identifying the disability of the user while allowing the institution to provide a plurality of interfaces to be matched with the user based on the disability input. That is, the present invention allows the institution to receive the required data from the web-based service without receiving any disability information of the user and matching the user to an appropriately modified web-based service.

“In an exemplary embodiment, the present invention can provide a data protection system, including a content request receiving circuit configured to receive a service request from a user, to communicate the service request to a provider, and to receive pre-approved versions of content from the provider, a content matching circuit configured to match a pre-approved version of content of the pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user, a user data receiving circuit configured to receive user data to complete the pre-approved version of the content, and a zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit configured to execute a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider.

“Further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention can provide a data protection method, including receiving a service request from a user and receiving pre-approved versions of content from a provider, matching a pre-approved version of content of the pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user, receiving user data to complete the pre-approved version of the content, and executing a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider.

“Even further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention can provide a third party intermediary for exchanging private data between a user and a provider, the third party intermediary including a content matching circuit configured to match a pre-approved version of content of pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user and to send the matched pre-approved version of content to a first device for the user to complete the matched pre-approved version of content, and a zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit configured to execute a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content completed by the user to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider.

“There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, an embodiment of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof herein may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional exemplary embodiments of the invention that will be described below and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.

“It is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of embodiments in addition to those described and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein, as well as the abstract, are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

“As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A data protection system, comprising: a content request receiving circuit configured to receive a service request from a user, to communicate the service request to a provider, and to receive pre-approved versions of content from the provider; a content matching circuit configured to match a pre-approved version of content of the pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user; a user data receiving circuit configured to receive user data to complete the pre-approved version of the content; and a zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit configured to execute a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider, wherein the user data is received via a third party intermediary that exchanges data between the user and the provider and that is separate from the user and the provider, wherein herein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a technique that is able to ensure the privacy of the user data from the party receiving it, and wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit carries out the zero-knowledge verifiable computing based on combinatorial logic with the completed pre-approved version of the content using a zero-knowledge protocol.

“2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a result providing circuit configured to provide the pre-approved version of the content with the private content removed, to the provider.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit performs the zero-knowledge verifiable computing using combinatorial logic with the pre-approved version of the content using a zero-knowledge protocol to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider.

“4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a result providing circuit configured to provide an output of combinational logic used in the zero-knowledge verifiable computing along with proof from the zero-knowledge protocol that the combinational logic was executed without alteration.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the provider receives a completed version of content matched to the user devoid of the condition of the user.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a succinct computational integrity and privacy (SCIP) technique.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge (zk-snark) technique.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a probabilistically checkable proof (PCP) technique.

“9. The system of claim 4, wherein the proof includes whether the program is using at least one of trusted computing, secure boot attestation, or a combination thereof.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the provider directly receives the service request, and wherein the content request receiving circuit receives the pre-approved versions of content from the provider, from the provider.

“11. A data protection method, comprising: receiving a service request from a user and receiving pre-approved versions of content from a provider; matching a pre-approved version of content of the pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user; receiving user data to complete the pre-approved version of the content; and executing a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider, wherein the user data is received via a third party intermediary that exchanges data between the user and the provider and that is separate from the user and the provider, wherein herein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a technique that is able to ensure the privacy of the user data from the party receiving it, and wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit carries out the zero-knowledge verifiable computing based on combinatorial logic with the completed pre-approved version of the content using a zero-knowledge protocol.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising providing the pre-approved version of the content with the private content removed, to the provider.

“13. The method of claim 11, wherein executing the program performs the zero-knowledge verifiable computing using combinatorial logic with the pre-approved version of the content using a zero-knowledge protocol to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider.

“14. The method of claim 11, further comprising providing an output of combinational logic used in the zero-knowledge verifiable computing along with proof that the combinational logic was executed without alteration.

“15. A data protection system for exchanging private data between a user and a provider, the system comprising: a content matching circuit configured to match a pre-approved version of content of pre-approved versions of content to the user based on a condition of the user, and to send the matched pre-approved version of content to a first device for the user to complete the matched pre-approved version of content; and a zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit configured to execute a program using zero-knowledge verifiable computing to remove private content from the pre-approved version of the content completed by the user, to ensure privacy of the condition of the user from the provider, wherein the user data is received via a third party intermediary that exchanges data between the user and the provider and that is separate from the user and the provider, wherein herein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing comprises a technique that is able to ensure the privacy of the user data from the party receiving it, and wherein the zero-knowledge verifiable computing circuit carries out the zero-knowledge verifiable computing based on combinatorial logic with the completed pre-approved version of the content using a zero-knowledge protocol.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein the pre-approved versions of content are provided to the third party intermediary based on a service request by the user.

“17. The system of claim 15, wherein the third party intermediary provides an output of combinational logic used in the zero-knowledge verifiable computing along with proof from the zero-knowledge protocol that the combinational logic was executed without alteration to the first device and to the provider.

“18. The system of claim 15, wherein the third party intermediary communicates with the first device and the provider independently of each other such that the condition of the user is not accessed by the provider.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Adams, Samuel Scott; Keohane, Susann Marie; Kraemer, James R.; Linton, Jeb R. System, Method, And Recording Medium For Preventing Back Propogation Of Data Protection. U.S. Patent Number 10,708,234, filed March 24, 2016, and published online on July 20, 2020. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,708,234.PN.&OS=PN/10,708,234RS=PN/10,708,234

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