There have been many attempts to provide for the security of consumers and other Internet users transacting business or gaining/providing access to confidential information on Web sites. An underlying goal of these schemes is to verify the identity and other specific information (such as membership in trade organizations or authorized retailer status) of the Web site provider, and thereby to reassure users that they can trust the site provider for e-commerce transactions or as a provider or recipient of confidential information.
In one such scheme, Extended Validation Certificates (described for instance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Validation_Certificate) are issued by a trusted authority to a Web site provider after the provider has undergone a thorough evaluation of its business credentials. This typically includes examination of items such as articles of incorporation, business licenses, and credit reports by the trusted authority. Unfortunately, such evaluations can be costly, and they are still vulnerable to sophisticated cons or spoofs. In addition, a site operator may continue to have a valid business license even though other important business credentials have changed. For example, a site may no longer: meet the service requirements to sell a particular brand, be able process transactions using a certain type of credit card, or be a member in good standing with a trade association. In these situations, the Extended Validation Certificate would still generally remain valid.
In a similar vein, the QUATRO Project (www.quatro-project.org) places labels on sites such as “fair commercial practices will be used on this site.” Sites can be adorned by a number of labels, which are written using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) notation of the Semantic Web (see for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework). QUATRO's labels can be stored locally on a Web site or with a Labeling Authority. In either case, verification of the labels proceeds through the QUATRO Proxy, referred to as QUAPRO. This is a computationally expensive and potentially time-consuming solution, since the proxy must retrieve the URL (separately from the client machine retrieving it), parse the RDF on the page, retrieve any labels from the site or Labeling Authority, and then verify them. The time required to do this depends heavily upon available network bandwidth. Additionally, this process may be spoofed, for example, by a malicious site learning the IP addresses of the QUAPRO sites, and sending the QUAPRO sites different content than it would actual users. In particular, QUATRO also does not enable the signing of content labels that are generated.
There is therefore a need for an improved verification system and method that is able to present provider or site-specific information to users in an efficient, up-to-date, and highly secure manner.
The present invention relates to such a system and method for presenting a message relating to a networked site on an end-user device.
In one aspect the invention provides a system including a verification application comprising computer-readable program code residing on an end-user device a verification server, remote from the end-user device and a verification server that is remote from the end-user device. The verification application is configured to send, via the network, a request to verify the authenticity of a message blob received by the end-user device when said end-user device accesses the networked site, and to enable presentation of the message on the end-user device upon receiving a return message confirming that the message blob is verified as authentic. The message originates from a third party (or trusted party) that is not a provider of the networked site, and the message blob contains the message and associated verification information. The verification server is configured: to receive, via the network, the request to verify the authenticity of the message blob from the verification application; to verify whether the message blob is authentic based on the verification information; and to send the return message confirming authenticity to the verification application if the message blob is verified as authentic.
In a preferred embodiment, the verification server is remote from servers of both the third party and the provider of the networked site.
When accessing the networked site, the end-user device may receive the message blob directly from the third party. Alternatively, the end-user device may receive the message blob from the provider as part of the content of the networked site.
Preferably, the associated verification information is generated, at least in part, from digital signature software and secret information provided to the third party by or on behalf of the verification server. The associated verification information may comprise information relating to the identity of the third party, information relating to the identity of the provider of the networked site and a digital signature. To verify whether the message blob is authentic, the verification server may determine the secret information provided to the third party based on the information relating to the identity of the third party and then use that secret information to evaluate the associated verification information.
The request to verify the authenticity of the message blob may comprise a verification blob that is identical to the message blob or that, alternatively, contains a hashed value of the message. The return message confirming authenticity may also comprise a hashed value of the message.
Preferably, the verification application is further configured to send, to the verification server, a request to verify the authenticity of the networked site together with identity information about the networked site. In this case, the verification server is further configured to verify whether the networked site is authentic prior to verifying whether the message blob is authentic.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of presenting a message relating to a networked site on an end-user device comprising: receiving from the end-user device, at a verification server remote from the end-user device, a request to verify the authenticity of a message blob, the message blob having been received at said end-user device when the end-user device accesses the networked site. The message originates from a third party that is not a provider of the networked site, and the message blob comprises the message and associated verification information. The method further comprises verifying at the verification server whether the message blob is authentic based on the verification information and, if the message blob is verified as authentic, sending a return message confirming authenticity to the end-user device so that the message can be presented on the end-user device.
In a further aspect the present invention provides a method of presenting a message relating to a networked site on an end-user device, the method comprising, when the end-user device accesses the networked site, receiving a message blob containing the message and associated verification information. Again, in this case, the message originates from a third party that is not a provider of the networked site. The method further comprises sending a request to verify the authenticity of the message blob to a verification server that is remote from the end-user device, and, if the message blob is verified as authentic by the verification server, enabling presentation of the message on the end-user device.
In yet another aspect the present invention provides a method of presenting a message relating to a networked site on an end-user device. Here, the method comprises transmitting the content of the site to the end-user device and further initiating transmission of a message blob to the end-user device when a request to serve content of a networked site is received from an end-user device. Again, in this case, the message originates from a third party that is not a provider of the networked site, and the message blob comprises the message and associated verification information. The method further comprises embedding within the content of the networked site a link to invoke a verification application residing on the end-user device, the verification application being configured to communicate with a verification server to enable the server to verify that the message blob is authentic based on the verification information. Upon the message blob being verified as authentic, the message can be presented on the end-user device as part of the content of the networked site.
The message blob may be served to the end-user device as part of the content of the networked site. The message blob may also be generated dynamically upon receiving the request to serve the content of the networked site and thereafter inserted as part of the site content. Alternatively, initiating transmission of the message blob to the end-user device may comprise sending a request to the third party to send the message blob directly to the end-user device. In another embodiment, initiating transmission of the message blob to the end-user device comprises embedding within the content of the networked site a request to invoke the verification application on the end-user device to further request the transmission of the message blob directly from the third party.
The objects and advantages of the present invention will be better understood and more readily apparent when considered in conjunction with the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which illustrate, by way of example, preferred embodiments of the invention and in which:
The present invention addresses the above-described disadvantages of the prior art by providing a system and method to enable trusted parties to present information to an Internet user indicating that the site the user has accessed meets the standards that one or more trusted parties have set in order for the site to have a business, commercial, or trade relationship with those trusted parties.
In accordance with the invention, the user is first preferably provided with verification that the provider of the site being accessed is authentic, i.e., that the provider of that site is the company or organization that it claims to be. In a preferred embodiment, this occurs using the system and method of co-pending and commonly-assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,805 filed Sep. 6, 2007 and entitled “System And Method For Verifying Networked Sites”, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Selected portions of this application—notably
Generally, in accordance with the system and method invention described in the above-referenced patent application, user-customized information such as an image, application skin, or audio clip is selected by the user to provide an indicator that clearly belongs to that particular user. The user-customized information is encrypted and stored on the end-user device. The user-customized information is only decrypted and presented to the user once the site under question has been authenticated, and the user need not perform any other action (such as clicking-through) to verify the site.
As shown, part of the content of page 103 references a verification (or “seal”) application 105 that is to be invoked locally on the end-user device 100 or downloaded from a verification (or “seal”) server 101. In some embodiments, the seal server 101 may be the same server as (or otherwise related to) provider server 102, however seal server 111 is preferably run by a trusted party that is independent of the provider and thus located at a different network location on the Web so that it is remote (i.e., at a different, unrelated network address) from provider server 102. In this manner, several different provider servers 102 may take part in the verification system. It will also be appreciated that seal server 101 may for example comprise a plurality of server systems operated by the same party (or related parties), and that such server systems may or may not be physically located at the same location or network address (and in fact for traffic-handling purposes it may be preferable to disperse them geographically). The end-user device has local storage 106—which in some embodiments may be the local file system (where permitted)—containing user-specific information such as browser cookies, Flash Shared Objects, or other user data. As shown in
In a preferred embodiment, and in a similar manner to known trust/authentication schemes, a provider site wishing to participate in the verification system “registers” with the verification authority running seal server 101 and, upon approval, information relating to that provider site (notably its true domain name and IP addresses) is stored in database 107. However, in other embodiments, the verification server need not have any pre-existing information about a provider site, and instead simply verifies that a site is who it says it is (and in this case authentication database 107 may not be used).
Initially, the verification or seal application (or “seal”) 105 may be dynamically downloaded from a trusted third party source (typically affiliated with the verification server 101) or otherwise installed on the user's computing device 100. As will be explained further below in connection with
Preferably the user-customized information includes some type of multimedia content such as an image, video, and/or audio clip, although a simple alphanumeric password could also be used. By allowing each user to personally select this customized information (for instance, the user may choose a picture of himself, a family member, or a pet or an audio recording of his choosing such as a mobile ringtone-like audio clip), each user can select information that is immediately recognizable and has long-term memory retention for the user. Alternatively, the user-customized information may be generated and assigned by the seal application running on the end-user device (for example, on a pseudo-random basis), again preferably without the seal server 101 having any record of this information.
As described below, seal application 105 is invoked in response to a request encoded within a provider's network-accessible content. Once invoked, the seal application can then initiate verification of the authenticity of a provider site in the manner described below. When it has done so, the seal displays, plays or otherwise presents the user-customized information to inform the user that the site's seal is genuine and not just an image copied from another Web site.
In one embodiment, seal application 105 is already resident on the end-user device having been fully downloaded by the user during the initial configuration stage. Alternatively, the user may only download a related customized information editor application (which may or may not be a component of seal application 105) that enables the selection and any initial configuration of the user-customized information, and the page served by provider server 102 includes instead a link to download application 105 from seal application server 101. This latter option, shown in
In the illustrated embodiment of
Generally, once invoked, seal application 105 collects identity information about a provider site and then forwards this information to seal server 101. The identity information may include (but is not limited to) the value of the browser state variable window.location.host, the name associated with an SSL certificate or a session challenge/response pair. Depending on the nature of the identity information received by seal server 101, it may then verify that the true domain name and/or IP address of a provider's site is authentic or genuine in various different ways.
In one embodiment, in order to allow seal server 101 to carry out authentication, seal application 105 uses JavaScript to determine the value of the variable window.location.host in the browser's object model, as shown in step 222. As will be appreciated, this value cannot be easily spoofed, because changing it has the side effect of changing the page the end-user's web browser is visiting. In addition, to provide a more secure level of authentication where the provider server has an SSL certificate, seal application 105 may invoke the browser to request the provider page by using the HTTPS protocol rather than HTTP in steps 205 and 210. In this case, if the hostname or domain name associated with the certificate does not match the hostname from window.location.host, the identity of the provider will not be confirmed or authenticated. An alternative to using the value of window.location.host is to use the value of document.location.host, which in modern browsers is a read-only property.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, sophisticated attacks on a DNS system such as DNS poisoning (which is described in the Web entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_cache_poisoning, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference), may allow a non-authentic Web page to appear in a browser with an incorrect window.location.host variable value. The use of SSL certificate data can circumvent most such attacks, although a very highly sophisticated attack in which DNS for SSL connections is properly resolved but non-SSL connections are otherwise “poisoned” may still theoretically be possible. For this reason, an embodiment using an even higher level of security (albeit with higher computational costs) is also described further below in connection with
At step 225 of the illustrated embodiment, the identity information (window.location.host) of the provider server or host of the site accessed by the user is sent by application 105 to seal server 101 along with a request to enable decryption of the user-customized information. At step 227, seal server 101 verifies that the provider is an authorized provider per the information sent in message 225. In this embodiment, assuming verification requires that all genuine provider sites have “registered” with or at least be known to server 101, verification notably includes verifying that the value of window.location.host is found in authentication database 107. On the other hand, in another embodiment, verification server 101 may not have any pre-existing information about a provider site, and instead simply verifies that a provider site is who it says it is by ensuring that the hostname associated with window.location.host matches the hostname associated with the provider site's SSL certificate. In yet another embodiment, the seal server may provide an indication to the user of the level of verification the server was able to perform. For example, the server 101 may indicate a “yellow light” authentication when the provider site is not known to it (i.e., not in database 107) but otherwise provides an SSL certificate match, and a “green light” authentication when the site passes both of these checks.
If server 101 verifies that the provider site is authentic, the seal application enables decryption of the user-customized information stored on the end-user device (as described below) so that this information can be presented to the user, preferably as part of the provider's page. In particular, in the illustrated embodiment of
As illustrated in
In some embodiments, enhanced security may be desirable and authentication of the provider may require more information than the identity information provided by either window.location.host or an SSL certificate. In particular, to more effectively combat DNS spoofing and other similar techniques, the provider 102 and seal server 101 may share an array of secret information, i.e., p_secret, that is out of band from the authentication process. These shared secrets can then be employed in a challenge/response fashion in the following manner, where the response to the challenge contains information that only the provider and the seal server are aware of and have access to. Here, the challenge and response are also sent by seal application 105 to the seal server 101 as identity information (or “identity credentials”).
For a challenge/response authentication of the provider, over either an HTTP or HTTPS connection, the value of a session cookie SC (shared between the seal server 111 and end-user device 100 and associated with the end-user device session) is used by the seal server 101 (or alternatively by seal application 105) to create a nonce that is cryptographically tied to the session cookie SC. For the case where the seal server creates the nonce, this can be done in the following manner:
nonce=Hash(secret[k]+Hash(SC))
where the secret array is known only to the seal server 101. The nonce is then used to create challenge C:
C=<k, nonce>
A provider response R to this challenge is as follows:
R<k, m, Hash(p_secret[m]+nonce)>
In the case where the seal application generates the nonce, this can be done as follows:
secret=Random( )
nonce=Hash(secret+Hash(SC))
C=<nonce>
R=<nonce, m, Hash(p_secret[m]+nonce>
The seal application in this case must also send the value of secret to the seal server in the verification request, so the seal server can check to make sure the nonce is tied to the session cookie SC. One skilled in the art will appreciate that these and related variants achieve the same goal, but with the computation distributed differently across the relevant parties.
Since the array of secrets p_secret is shared between the provider and seal server, the seal server can verify the identity of the provider. Furthermore, at any time seal server 101 can change or revoke the shared secrets should the provider no longer meet the authentication requirements. The indices k and m above allow for key rotation and maintenance. In some embodiments, the values of k and m may be identical, allowing for one less parameter in the system. This may be desirable if it is otherwise cryptographically acceptable.
Still referring to
The above-described challenge/response steps occur as an interaction between seal application 105 and provider server 102, although seal server 101 may provide some assistance, such as providing application 105 with the nonce that is cryptographically tied to the seal application's session cookie with the seal server.
In an alternative embodiment, after receiving a request to verify a provider site from the seal application 105, the seal server 101 may generate and issue a challenge directly to the provider server without involving seal application 105. However such an embodiment may be more vulnerable to DNS cache poisoning attacks, and therefore is less preferred.
In the exemplary embodiment of
Generally, however, the present invention provides an improved system and method of providing such site-specific supplementary information to users in an efficient, up-to-date, and highly secure manner. This will shortly be described in connection with
In the above-described site verification system and method, customized information or content resident on the end-user device 100 is unlocked and displayed only if the provider site has been authenticated. With the presentation of the customized information upon authentication, a user can rapidly and easily determine at a glance (or at a listen, if sound is employed) that the provider site is authentic. There is no confusion or uncertainty associated with examining address bars in browsers, checking for locked or unlocked padlock icons, or clicking-through to get verification information. Even consumers who are not sophisticated enough to examine a browser's security features are still able to verity the site's authenticity by simply determining whether or not their customized information is presented to them. Where that information or icon has personal meaning, for example a photo of one's self, family member, or pet, recognition is effectively automatic and the absence of the proper information or icon is readily ascertained.
Furthermore, the provider site is authenticated to the consumer prior to the consumer providing any personally identifiable information such as a username or password. The customized information is tied to the user's device rather than to the provider; and the same customized information can be used by a consumer to verify any provider site that participates with the seal server in the site authentication system. As a result, a user does not have to memorize different icons or sets of information for different providers.
In this manner, the user-customized information is not stored in nor is it accessible by a provider's server 102, and no preexisting relationship between the user and a Web site operator is required. In addition, the verification system and method works across multiple providers, preferably (but not necessarily) with a pre-existing relationship between each provider and the seal server. As a result, the system and method is well-suited for the authentication of a provider web site for all potential users, even if the users have no relationship with the provider and have never visited the provider's site before.
Thus, using identity information provided by the seal application 105, the seal server 101 acts as the authenticating entity, but importantly users are not required to register with the seal server as they are with authentication entities in prior art icon-based systems. The only initial step that a user must carry is the initial configuration of the user-customized information as described further in the incorporated U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,805.
Generally, in the above-described verification system, seal application 105 and seal server 101 communicate with one another to enable both encryption and decryption of the user-customized information. Preferably, seal server 101 manages encryption keys for the user's customized information without ever needing to be in possession of or to store that information. This is also described in more detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,805.
Having described a preferred system for verifying that the provider of a networked (e.g., Internet) site is authentic,
In accordance with the present invention, system 50 enables the flow of such additional site-specific information about a provider 540 to the end-user device 550, preferably in the form of digitally signed messages. The seal application resident on the end-user device 550 relays a signed message containing site-specific information (or a hashed value thereof to the seal server 500 which in turn verifies that the information originates from a known trusted party and pertains to that particular networked site. In this way, the seal application on the end-user device serves as a conduit for all site-specific information pertaining to the networked site coming from trusted parties that have a relationship with provider 540.
Terminology-wise, any specific item (or set of items) of information relating to a provider's networked site is referred to herein as a message, and the collection of a message and associated verification information is referred to herein as a message blob. In one embodiment, the verification information comprises information relating to the identity of the third party, information relating to the identity of the provider of the networked site and a digital signature. The verification information may further optionally include expiration data. As described further below, the digital signature, which may comprise for example a verification token, can in turn be generated at least in part from the identity of the provider, the message, and a secret shared between the seal server and the trusted party.
These message blobs are not visible to an end-user, but are encoded in a non-viewable form such as a set of JavaScript variables. The message blobs themselves can be signed in advance by trusted parties and stored at the provider server 540. Alternatively, they can be generated dynamically and signed by a trusted party, and then inserted by the provider into the content of a page of the provider's networked site or, alternatively, sent directly to an end-user device.
Referring to
Preferably, the provider server, trusted party server(s), and seal server are all located remotely from one another on the network and are operated by independent parties. However, in some cases, the provider 540 may itself act as a trusted party. Still in other cases, the seal server 500 may be a trusted party.
In accordance with the illustrated embodiments, the messages are only displayed to the user after a seal application has also verified the identity of the site as described above in connection with
Referring to
Trusted parties enter into a business relationship with the seal server which allows the trusted parties to digitally sign messages to place on a provider site (i.e., so that they are presented to a user as part of that provider's content). In
For the sake of illustration only, the HMAC embodiment is described below. The digital signature software tool takes as input the identity of the provider P, a message M, an expiration date E, and a shared secret SECT,SS, and it produces as output a message blob MB defined as:
MBT=<P, M, E, T, V>
where V is a verification token (i.e., a digital signature) defined as:
V=HMAC(P+H(M+E), SECT,SS)
The notation MBT refers to a message blob that is signed by trusted party T. It is a 5-tuple consisting of the identity P of the provider, the message string M itself, the expiration date E, the identity T of the trusted party, and the verification token V. In this embodiment, the message string is sent unencrypted and therefore would be visible in the source code of the provider's served content, although that content is still preferably transmitted over a secure SSL connection and therefore is encrypted at the protocol level. In other embodiments, the message string M itself could alternatively be encrypted prior to transmission.
As will be appreciated, instead of an expiration date E, other types of information or data can alternatively be used to verify the timeliness of a message. For example, a third party may use a revocation list. In such a case, the above-described verification token, V, would use a hashed value of M only, i.e., V=HMAC(P+H(M), SECT,SS).
In the present embodiment: the first argument to the HMAC verification token is the concatenation of the provider identity P with a hash of the message M concatenated with the expiration date E, denoted by H(M+E), where H is a secure hashing function such as SHA-1 or SHA-256. The second argument to the HMAC is a secret SECT,SS that is shared between the trusted party T and the seal server SS. The HMAC itself uses a secure hashing function. As will be appreciated, the shared secret is a piece of data known only to these parties and may take various different forms such as a password. In other embodiments, a digital signature could be created using a public key infrastructure, using the private key of the trusted party T to sign the remaining data.
In a preferred embodiment, HMAC(P+H(M+E), SECT,SS) is used instead of HMAC(P+M+E, SECT,SS)—even though the latter would be equally cryptographically secure. This is because verification of the signature, using a message that subsequently travels between the seal application and the seal server, can be done with a message payload that is independent of the length of the verified site-specific message. A further advantage of this embodiment is that the seal server never has access to the entire message. However, HMAC(P+M+E, SECT,SS) or any other appropriate signature scheme could alternatively be used as a verification token.
Using the signature tool described above, the trusted parties may sign messages.
These two message blobs are sent to provider 540 by any appropriate means such as Web service, e-mail, physical delivery, or any other means available for transferring information. Once at the provider site 540, the provider may insert the messages directly into the content of its Web site, or may optionally store them in a database 641 so that they may be used across multiple Web pages or Web pages that are dynamically generated from database content.
In
Where system 50 additionally acts as a verification system for authenticating the provider 540 to end-user device 550, the Web page 742 may advantageously be the same page that is downloaded from provider to end-user device in message response 210 of
In
In
It will be appreciated that the examples of authentication presented in
In some embodiments, it may be desirable for the seal application to communicate directly with a trusted party in order to receive a message blob. Such an example is shown in
MBT<P, M, E, T, V>
where verification token V is:
V=HMAC(P+H(M+E), SECT,SS)
This blob may have exactly the same structure as any other message blob, whether signed in advance and stored with the provider per
Regardless of how the blob was created and sent to end-user device 550, the seal application 1051 requests verification of the message blob by the seal server 500 as shown in
In a preferred embodiment, a verification blob is sent as:
VBT=<P, H(M+E), E, T, V)>
The value H(M+E) is independent of the length of message M. In addition, since this value is only a digest, the contents of the message are never revealed to the seal server. To verify the verification blob, the seal server can look up the value of shared secret SECT,SS based on identity T. With that secret, the seal server can compute the value of
V′=HMAC(P+H(M+E), SECT,SS)
If the following three criteria are met: (i) provider identity P as verified matches the identity used at message blob signature, (ii) V′=V, and (iii) E has not expired, then the verification blob is valid. This verification logic will be used in the description of
Advantageously, message 1373 may correspond to message 225 of
In
In
Again, message 1505 may advantageously correspond to message 230 of
Finally, in
If the verification of the provider 540 fails in
In all cases, audio or other indicators may also be present.
In this manner relevant site-specific information can be presented to a user in a verified and authentic manner. All such signed messages are funneled through the trusted seal application back to a server for verification of the signatures. Furthermore, since site-specific information is digitally signed, tampering and spoofing of this information is much more difficult.
As a result, the present invention is both more effective and efficient compared to prior art solutions since the trusted parties are, in effect, entities that have already independently vetted the provider 540 via an existing and ongoing relationship. For instance, a brand may not only have vetted the identity of a particular provider 540, but it may also have vetted the provider's business as one that upholds and meets the service standards they require for the sale of their products. Ultimately, this is often the level of trust the end-user or consumer seeks: Is the provider and more particularly the provider's Web site authorized to sell a product of interest? If so, the end-user can be confident in trusting the site. On the other hand, merely knowing that a provider has a legal business somewhere (which is effectively what prior art solutions such as Extended Validation Certificates do) does not engender the same level of trust for the end-user.
In this manner, the invention can be used to help protect users when particular facets of a provider's operation or behavior are not up to standards, rather than just when the operator loses a business license. Thus, for instance, if the provider is not upholding the sales assistance and warranty service required of Brand 1, the verification of the site as a trusted vendor of Brand 1 can be revoked without affecting Brand 2. Similarly, if the site has a history of problems with one credit card brand but not another, the site-specific information for the site may be modified accordingly. Similarly, the invention enables a consumer to see that the provider is still a member of a brand's retailer network or still is a member of a trade association (and has not just copied the association's graphic onto its web site). A brand can sever its ties with the site, revoking its authorized dealer status, without the site losing its business license. The interests of the consumer are served, as they are being spared the prospects of a sub-par or inconsistent buying experience.
While the invention has been described in conjunction with specific embodiments, it is evident that numerous alternatives, modifications, and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. For example, while invoking of the seal application via JavaScript was described, the seal application may be invoked using any suitable programming language or script (such as HTML). The local storage of data for the end-user device can be achieved through a variety of means, including local programs, JavaScript, Java, or Flash applications. Moreover, several cryptographic options that can be employed in a variety of ways. Furthermore, although use of the verification system and method described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/850,805 is preferred to initially verify a networked site, in other embodiments other site verification systems may be used in conjunction with system 50.
This application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/971,968 filed Sep. 13, 2007, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The present invention relates to a system and method for verifying the authenticity and credentials of information presented on networked sites, especially World Wide Web sites. More particularly, it relates to a system and method for providing different types of verified information about a specific provider site to a user of that a site.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60971968 | Sep 2007 | US |