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 System and method for usage-based misinformation detection and responseUSPTO Application #: 20070180521Title: System and method for usage-based misinformation detection and response Abstract: Methods of detecting, and providing a notification of, the existence of misinformation using usage patterns of a network service enable an organization to respond to the misinformation. The method includes establishing common usage patterns of the network service, identifying an irregular usage pattern, determining that the irregular usage pattern was caused by misinformation, and responding to the misinformation. (end of abstract) Agent: Scully Scott Murphy & Presser, PC - Garden City, NY, US USPTO Applicaton #: 20070180521 - Class: 726022000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Information Security, Monitoring Or Scanning Of Software Or Data Including Attack Prevention The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070180521. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The invention relates generally to electronic or network based detection and notification systems for organizations or like entities, and more particularly to early detection and notification of misinformation related to a given organization. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Negative publicity is of great concern to consumer organizations, especially when the negative publicity is accessible to the public via a network. One particular form of negative publicity is misinformation, which includes unintentionally posted incorrect data, maliciously posted incorrect data (referred to as "disinformation"), and private data (i.e. data that is inadvertently disclosed, such as reduced prices provided to special customers, for example). [0003] In addition to reducing a given organization's popularity, misinformation can mislead customers. For example, an incorrectly posted URL for a particular company will prevent consumers from accessing the company's website. As another example, a false report regarding faulty software can reduce a customer's trust in the company and engender decrease or loss of any good will the company may have built. [0004] Several attempts have been made to develop systems and methods for automated detection of and response to misinformation. For example, virus detection systems, such as the Antivirus product from Symantec, are able to find and eliminate software explicitly designed to disrupt machine and network operations, but do not provide a way of identifying false or misleading data, only dangerous programs. [0005] There are network monitoring systems, such as the Netcool Suite.TM. from Micromuse Network Solutions, San Francisco, Calif., that are able to identify hardware and software errors as well as operation problems (e.g., network overload,). Another monitoring system called NetRanger.TM. by Cisco monitors network traffic posting alerts whenever network-based intrusions (e.g., denial-of-service attacks) are detected. Such applications are still not able to identify the presence of misinformation. Web log analysis enables identification of server and network malfunctions, but does not enable the detection of misinformation. Search engines (e.g., Google) have been be used to retrieve postings from multiple sources (e.g., web sites, newsgroups and chat groups) relevant to a particular topic (e.g., "IBM spamming spammers"), but do not enable the identification of misinformation. [0006] Chat group moderators are able to monitor all activity and content within their chat group, but have no means of determining whether changes in local activity patterns are due to misinformation. Corporate public relations and branding specialists are able to determine whether a given statement/article is misinformation, but they have no way to be quickly and automatically notified by one of their organization's network servers of instances of potential misinformation. Buzz detection systems, such as those provided by IBM's WebFountain.TM. are able to estimate and characterize the public's reaction to a given product by reviewing and comparing both structured (e.g., web pages) and unstructured data (e.g., chat room conversations) related to the given product. Such systems do not provide a way of identifying and providing notification of misinformation. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0007] The invention relates generally to electronic or network based detection and notification systems for organizations or like entities, and more particularly to early detection and notification of misinformation related to a given organization. [0008] In one aspect, the invention involves a method of detecting, and providing a notification of, the existence of misinformation using usage patterns of a network service. The method includes establishing common usage patterns of the network service, identifying an irregular usage pattern, determining that the irregular usage pattern was caused by misinformation, and responding to the misinformation. [0009] In one embodiment, the method further includes determining the source of the misinformation. In another embodiment, responding to the misinformation includes one or more of: modifying the network service to accommodate misinformation, asking the source of misinformation for correction or retraction, providing results for searches regarding misinformation, posting an entry in an online discussion forum explaining the misinformation, or notifying a group responsible for public relations, CRM, or product branding of misinformation so that the group can react. In yet another embodiment, the usage patterns include known pulses and idle time, known content, and max, min, average and mean usage levels. In still another embodiment, misinformation includes a false quote, a false fact, or a false URL. [0010] According to another aspect, the invention involves a method of detecting abnormal use of a network service caused by misinformation. The method includes determining common usage patterns for the network service, monitoring the usage patterns of service to detect abnormal usage patterns, and determining if the abnormal usage patterns were caused by misinformation. [0011] In one embodiment, abnormal usage includes requests for a non-existent URL. In another embodiment, abnormal usage includes a large number of searches within the network service, which do not match any of the network service's data. In yet another embodiment, monitoring the usage patterns of service to detect abnormal usage patterns is manually performed. In still another embodiment, different users monitor different aspects of the network service. In another embodiment, an automatic misinformation recognition agent requests an authorized user to determine if a given abnormal usage pattern was caused by misinformation. In other embodiments, an automatic misinformation response agent requests that an authorized human determine how to handle a given misinformation incident. In still other embodiments, specific third party services are checked for usage indicating misinformation. In another embodiment, activities of a specific user are checked for behavior indicating misinformation. In yet another embodiment, determining if the abnormal usage patterns were caused by misinformation includes checking for correlations between specific activity and patterns of activity to reveal misinformation. In other embodiments, correlations include one or more of: actions of a particular user, numerous searches for a particular topic, searches that fail to return any results, action level or content in a third party service, reduced or low levels of one or more activities, or hits from a particular source. In still another embodiment, the network service includes one or more online servers. [0012] According to still another aspect, the invention involves a system for detecting, and providing a notification of, the existence of misinformation using usage patterns of a network service. The system includes means for establishing common usage patterns of the network service, means for identifying an irregular usage pattern, means for determining that the irregular usage pattern was caused by misinformation, and means for responding to the misinformation. [0013] According to yet another aspect, the invention involves a program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for detecting, and providing a notification of, the existence of misinformation using usage patterns of a network service. The method steps include establishing common usage patterns of the network service, identifying an irregular usage pattern, determining that the irregular usage pattern was caused by misinformation, and responding to the misinformation. [0014] The foregoing and other objects, aspects, features, and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following description and from the claims. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES [0015] In the drawings, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different views. Also, the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. [0016] FIG. 1 is an illustrative schematic diagram of a network architecture for a usage-based misinformation detection and response system according to one embodiment of the invention. [0017] FIG. 2 is an illustrative block diagram of a Misinformation Detection Server according to one embodiment of the invention. [0018] FIG. 3 is an illustrative flow diagram of the operation of a Misinformation Detection Server according to one embodiment of the invention. [0019] FIG. 4 is an illustrative flow diagram of the operation of an Administrative Client Interface Servlet according to one embodiment of the invention. [0020] FIG. 5 is an illustrative flow diagram of the operation of the Misinformation Detection System according to one embodiment of the invention. Continue reading... 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