U.S. patent application number 12/458617 was filed with the patent office on 2011-01-20 for system and method of mobile content sharing and delivery in an integrated network environment.
Invention is credited to Chien-An Cho, Chih-Lin Hu, Po-Jung Wang.
Application Number | 20110013775 12/458617 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 43465317 |
Filed Date | 2011-01-20 |
United States Patent
Application |
20110013775 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Hu; Chih-Lin ; et
al. |
January 20, 2011 |
System and method of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment
Abstract
A system and method of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment, comprising; a first mobile terminal
serving as information provider, a home server, and a second mobile
terminal serving as information receiver. The information of said
first mobile terminal is transmitted to said second mobile terminal
through said home server, and that information can be stored in
said home server for direct downloading of file by said second
mobile terminal in an asynchronous transmission manner; when said
first mobile terminal moves and switches to another network
environment, said second mobile terminal still can request and
download said information through said home server. A double key
protection scheme is further provided in safeguarding secure
transaction of information.
Inventors: |
Hu; Chih-Lin; (Taipei City,
TW) ; Cho; Chien-An; (Taipei City, TW) ; Wang;
Po-Jung; (Taipei City, TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
ROSENBERG, KLEIN & LEE
3458 ELLICOTT CENTER DRIVE-SUITE 101
ELLICOTT CITY
MD
21043
US
|
Family ID: |
43465317 |
Appl. No.: |
12/458617 |
Filed: |
July 17, 2009 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
380/278 ;
370/338; 709/203 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04W 12/10 20130101;
H04L 67/06 20130101; H04W 12/35 20210101; H04L 2209/60 20130101;
H04L 63/126 20130101; H04L 2209/80 20130101; H04L 9/0827 20130101;
H04L 69/28 20130101; G06F 2221/2105 20130101; H04L 67/04 20130101;
H04L 67/2842 20130101; H04W 12/04 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
380/278 ;
370/338; 709/203 |
International
Class: |
H04W 4/00 20090101
H04W004/00; H04L 9/08 20060101 H04L009/08 |
Claims
1. A system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an integrated
network environment, comprising: a first mobile terminal, used to
transmit information onto Internet; a home server, used to store or
temporarily store information of said first mobile terminal, and
search for at least a receiver of said information, thus
establishing a connection between said first mobile terminal and
said receiver; and at least a second mobile terminal, used to serve
as said receiver for receiving said information transmitted by said
home server.
2. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
first mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal obtain their
respective network addresses through utilizing an Address Layer of
a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol, said first mobile
terminal utilizes a Discovery Layer in searching for said second
mobile terminal, presents an access position of said second mobile
terminal through a Description Layer, and provides a function of
data exchange and content sharing & browsing between said first
mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal through utilizing a
Control Layer.
3. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 2, wherein upon
joining in a network by said first mobile terminal and said second
mobile terminal, said Address Layer is used to request their
addresses through a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) or
an automatic Internet Protocol (IP) mode.
4. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 3, wherein said
automatic Internet Protocol (IP) mode is utilized when said Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is not available for use.
5. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 2, wherein said
Discovery Layer is used to make scattered and distributed searches
in a small scale local area network by making use of a Simple
Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP).
6. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 2, wherein said
first mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal broadcast
messages at predetermined positions periodically, and utilize a
header of said broadcasted message for indicating an access
position of a description text of said first mobile terminal and
second mobile terminal.
7. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 2, wherein said
Control Layer is formed through customizing a Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP), for providing services of message transmission and
remote control.
8. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
second mobile terminal is used to make a request for sharing
resources of said first mobile terminal, and is able to download
directly designated content from said first mobile terminal.
9. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
second mobile terminal is used to make a request for sharing said
resources of said first mobile terminal, and said resources are
stored by said first mobile terminal in said home server, such that
said second mobile terminal may download said resources from said
home server.
10. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
first mobile terminal is used to store said plurality of files in
said home server, such that upon downloading a preceding file from
said first mobile terminal by said second mobile terminal, said
subsequent files can be downloaded directly from said home
server.
11. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein when
a connection between said second mobile terminal and said home
server or said connection between said home server and said first
mobile terminal is disconnected and thus requiring reconnection,
said reconnection must be verified and authorized by a secure
transmission mechanism, before it is allowed to proceed with
continued data transmission.
12. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein when
said connection between said first mobile terminal, said home
server, and said second mobile terminal is disconnected, said home
server will provide a transmission deadline for a transmission
transaction to said first mobile terminal and said second mobile
terminal, and when said first mobile terminal informs said home
server and said second mobile terminal that transmission of
downloaded files can be resumed, then said second mobile terminal
may resume downloading said file again.
13. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
first mobile terminal and said home server generate a Provider Key
in advance, and said Provider Key will be automatically updated
periodically.
14. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein upon
a start of said transmission transaction, said home server
automatically generates a Transaction Key, so as to safeguard
identification verification between said home server and said
second mobile terminal.
15. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein a
content directory service is provided on a virtual file system of
one of said first mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal,
and that is used to display information of shared content according
to user's request, and corresponding meta-data will be generated
for all shared items.
16. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
first mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal can be
located in a different network environment.
17. The system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment as claimed in claim 1, wherein said
home server further includes a virtual file system, and that is
used to generate a temporary access point for a shared and
transmitted file for each of said transmission transactions, such
that said second mobile terminal may request downloading said file
through said temporary access point, and when said transmission
transaction is completed, then said temporary access point will be
invalidated immediately.
18. A method of secure data transmission in an integrated network
environment, that is a mechanism used for requesting continued data
transmission, when a connection between a first mobile terminal, a
home server, and at least a second mobile terminal is disconnected,
comprising the following steps: providing a transmission deadline
by said home server for a transmission transaction between said
first mobile terminal and said second mobile terminal; generating a
provider key in advance by said first mobile terminal and said home
server; starting subsequent downloading of files by said second
mobile terminal; and generating a transaction key by said home
server automatically upon a start of said transmission transaction,
so as to protect said connection between said home server and said
second mobile terminal.
19. The method of secure data transmission in an integrated network
environment as claimed in claim 18, wherein said provider key is
automatically updated periodically.
20. The method of secure data transmission in an integrated network
environment as claimed in claim 18, wherein said second mobile
terminal may resume downloading files in said transmission deadline
until finishing downloading of said files.
21. The method of secure data transmission in an integrated network
environment as claimed in claim 18, wherein said first mobile
terminal, said home server, and said second mobile terminal are
used to proceed with data delivery in XML-RPC mode, and content of
two data fields are used to verify an identification and an
authorization status of said home server and said second mobile
terminal.
22. The method of secure data transmission in an integrated network
environment as claimed in claim 21, wherein said content of said
data field are provided in said provider key and said transaction
key.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a technology of data
transmission in a network environment, and in particular to a
system and method of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment.
[0003] 2. The Prior Arts
[0004] Nowadays, the progress and development of wireless
communication technologies and mobile handheld devices (MHDs) have
enabled users to get onto a specific network easily for accessing a
plurality of information services through various mobile networks.
From a different viewpoint, presently, quite a lot of MHDs are
provided with simple digital camera functions, some of their high
level versions are also capable of executing multi-media functions,
such as audio recording/video recordings, etc. Therefore, an MHD
can not only download various multi-media data from Internet, but
the MHD itself is also capable of producing multi-media content;
meanwhile, aided with the advance of data storage technology and an
increase of its storage capacity, the library of multi-media
content that can be stored on an MHD is getting increasingly
enormous to an extent that it may serve as "a mobile information
content provider device". When this situation happens, it is
natural that a user of an MHD in a user group may have the desire
to exchange and share media content with a user of another MHD in
the user group.
[0005] Refer to FIG. 1 for a system block diagram of a mobile
content sharing and delivery system in an integrated network
environment according to an embodiment of the present invention. As
shown in FIG. 1, in practice, for a mobile handheld device, there
usually exist two or three wireless communication means. For
instance, presently, quite a lot of mobile phones are provided with
communication modules of wireless LAN, telecommunication network,
and Bluetooth. A mobile handheld device (MHD) can access different
networks simultaneously, therefore, it is capable of performing
different network services on different network interfaces (for
example, performing handset communication functions on GSM/UMTS
interface, and performing webpage access/multi-media sharing
services on WiFi etc.), in case that the services scattered and
distributed on various different networks can be combined further
into an integrated network software that can be executed in a
multi-network environment, such that this sort of integrated
network environment is capable of providing a brand new, ubiquitous
information services having great potential for further
development.
[0006] To be more specific, supposing that two users A and B each
having his mobile handheld device (MHD) respectively and stay in a
same wireless network at the same time. In this case, user A has
some information content stored in his MHD and would like to share
them with user B. To achieve this purpose, the MHD of user A will
firstly look up and find automatically the MHD of user B, then the
MHD of user A will proceed with the communications, preparations,
and initiations of data transfer with the MHD of user B. In case
that during data transfer, user B has to leave to another place,
but at this time, the data transfer has not been finished yet. At
this moment, user A may utilize his MHD for communicating with his
home server (possibly through mobile, wired, or wireless network,
etc.) requesting his home server to allow user B to download some
specific files, then user A will provide user B with a set of
specific certificates for executing the file downloading process
that has not been finished yet. Subsequently, after leaving his
original network, the MHD of user B can still download the rest of
the data files from user A's home server through other available
networks, even though at this time, user A and user B are in
different network domains.
[0007] Compared with a fixed network system, wireless network and
mobile network have some different characteristics and shortcomings
as follows:
[0008] Low transaction throughput: due to intrinsic restrictions,
large volume information content transfer between MHDs requires a
fairly long period of time.
[0009] Limited Power Capacity: while almost all the MHDs are
battery-powered, in order to prevent too much and too fast power
consumption, long distance data transmission should be avoided.
[0010] Limited Transmission Range: for single-hop transmission
range, the range in a PAN or WLAN is restricted to a few or dozens
meters. Therefore, during data transmission, the range of distance
between two moving MHDs is rather restricted, such that they must
remain in a same network domain in proceeding with data
transfer.
[0011] Lack of Mobility Support: usually, a mobile network system
can only support terminal mobility for location management.
However, it is a great challenge for the current mobile network
systems to provide data transfer services with cross network
mobility support.
[0012] For the reasons mentioned above, it is evident that the
functions and performances of mobile content sharing and delivery
of wireless network and mobile network of the prior art are not
quite satisfactory, thus it has much room for improvements.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0013] In view of the shortcomings and drawbacks of the prior art,
the present invention discloses a system and method of mobile
content sharing and delivery in an integrated network environment,
so as to overcome the drawbacks and shortcomings of the prior
art.
[0014] A major objective of the present invention is to provide a
system and method of mobile content sharing and delivery in an
integrated network environment. Wherein, a home server is utilized
in providing asynchronous content delivery technology, such that
media content transfer of the mobile handheld device in a hybrid
and heterogeneous network is not restricted to the mobility of MHD
and distance of data transfer, and that the connection of network
devices and setting of file transfer mode do not have to be
changed.
[0015] Another objective of the present invention is to provide a
system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an integrated
network environment. Wherein, three kinds of asynchronous content
delivery services are provided: direct downloading, redirect
downloading, and continued downloading conducted through a home
server.
[0016] Another objective of the present invention is to provide a
system of mobile content sharing and delivery in an integrated
network environment. Wherein, a double key protection mechanism is
utilized, such that home server can be convinced that a second
mobile terminal serving as a receiver can be trusted. In this
double key protection mechanism, a Provider Key is first generated
in advance by a home server and a first mobile terminal serving as
a provider, for safeguarding the mutual trust relations between the
two parties; while the home server automatically generates a
Transaction Key at the start of transmission transaction, in
safeguarding the connection between a home server and the second
mobile terminal is authentic.
[0017] To achieve the afore-mentioned objective, the present
invention provides a system of mobile content sharing and delivery
in an integrated network environment, comprising: a first mobile
terminal, that is used to transmit information onto Internet; a
home server, that is used to store or temporarily store the
information of the first mobile terminal, and search for at least a
receiver of the information in establishing a connection between
the first mobile terminal and a receiver; and at least a second
mobile terminal, that is used to serve as a receiver for receiving
information transmitted from a home server.
[0018] In addition, the present invention provides a method of
mobile content sharing and delivery in an integrated network
environment, that is a kind of mechanism used for requesting and
proceeding with continued transmission of data when the connection
between a first mobile terminal, a home server, and at least a
second mobile terminal is disconnected, including the following
steps: providing by the home server a transmission deadline for the
Transmission Transaction between a first mobile terminal and a
second mobile terminal; generating a Provider Key in advance by the
first mobile terminal and the home server; starting downloading of
file by the second mobile terminal; and generating automatically a
Transaction Key by the home server upon the start of Transmission
Transaction, for safeguarding the connection between the home
server and the second mobile terminal.
[0019] Further scope of the applicability of the present invention
will become apparent from the detailed description given
hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed
description and specific examples, while indicating preferred
embodiments of the present invention, are given by way of
illustration only, since various changes and modifications within
the spirit and scope of the present invention will become apparent
to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0020] The related drawings in connection with the detailed
description of the present invention to be made later are described
briefly as follows, in which:
[0021] FIG. 1 is a system block diagram of a mobile content sharing
and delivery system in an integrated network environment according
to an embodiment of the present invention;
[0022] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a Redirect Downloading
Service provided by a mobile content sharing and delivery system in
an integrated network environment according to an embodiment of the
present invention;
[0023] FIG. 3 are program codes of a meta-data item for a file and
directory in a virtual file system of a mobile content sharing and
delivery system in an integrated network environment according to
an embodiment of the present invention; and
[0024] FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of double key protection
mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0025] The purpose, construction, features, functions, and
advantages of the present invention can be appreciated and
understood more thoroughly through the following detailed
description with reference to the attached drawings.
[0026] The present invention provides a system and method of mobile
content sharing and delivery in an integrated network environment.
Refer to FIG. 1 for a system block diagram of a mobile content
sharing and delivery system in an integrated network environment
according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in
FIG. 1, the system of the present invention includes: a first
mobile terminal 10, used to transmit information to a home server
12 on Internet; a home server 12, used to store or temporarily
store the information of the first mobile terminal 10, and search
for at least a second mobile terminal 14 serving as a receiver for
establishing a connection between a first mobile terminal 10 and a
second mobile terminal 14, so that the second mobile terminal 14
can receive the information of the first mobile terminal 10 through
a home server 12.
[0027] In the implementation of the system of the present
invention, the data transmission between the first mobile terminal
10 and the second mobile terminal 14 is realized through an Address
Layer, a Discovery Layer, a Description Layer, and a Control Layer
by means of a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol. Wherein, the
Address Layer is used to obtain a network address for the first
mobile terminal 10 and the second mobile terminal 14 respectively.
When the first mobile terminal 10 and the second mobile terminal 14
join in a network, the Address Layer is used to request their
respective addresses through a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP) or an automatic Internet Protocol (IP) mode, wherein, the
automatic IP mode is utilized when Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) is not available for use; the first mobile terminal
10 utilizes the Discovery Layer in searching for the second mobile
terminal 14 in a small-scale Local Area Network in a distributed
manner by making use of a Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP);
the first mobile terminal 10 and the second mobile terminal 14 will
periodically broadcast at predetermined positions, and indicate
through the Description Layer the access positions of description
text of the first mobile terminal 10 and the second mobile terminal
14 by means of a header in a broadcasted message; the Control Layer
is a customized layer achieved through utilizing a Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP), for integrating HTTP and XML technologies,
in providing a set of web-service-based message transmission and
remote control service, as such, data exchange and content sharing
and browsing between the first mobile terminal 10 and the second
mobile terminal 14 can be realized through the Control Layer.
[0028] Presently, the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Forum has
already standardized the communication formats of some of the
frequently used devices, so as to safeguard normal communications
between similar types of devices of different manufacturers.
However, the portions concerning mobile content delivery have not
been defined yet. For this reason, in the present stage, the
structure design of the present invention has customized a simple
communication format by making use of a Control Layer, hereby
fulfilling the basic requirements of exchange of meta-data and
content sharing and browsing. In addition, though a message
standard of the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) can be
utilized in a reliable network or a small scale Local Area Network
in achieving fairly good efficacy, however, since the volume of the
transmitted packaged messages is overly large, thus creating
additional burden of computer calculations. For this reason, the
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is not suitable to use in an
unreliable wireless network environment, and long distance
transmission. Therefore, in the present invention, the Control
Layer of the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol is physically
realized on a mobile communication device of a first mobile
terminal and a second mobile terminal instead of on a home server.
In addition, a set of remote transmission mechanisms similar to the
framework of the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol is proposed,
that is suitable for used in mutual communication between a mobile
device and a home server in a Wide Area Network.
[0029] With regard to the asynchronous data transmission, in the
present invention, three basic data downloading services and
content directory services are designed. Wherein, the content
directory service is made in consideration of the fact that the
original file system of the mobile handheld device is just too
simple, therefore, the design of this service is based on a virtual
file system of the first mobile terminal and the second mobile
terminal, and the shared content are displayed according to the
user requirement, such that all the shared items will generate
corresponding meta-data, for example, the virtual file system may
create classified directory of musical, image, film, etc. In
addition, in order to prevent possible security threat, the file
access address can be replaced by a string of garbled words, so
that the virtual file system may correspond back to the original
file system by referencing its identification code. The basic file
description sample is as shown as the program codes in FIG. 3. The
three asynchronous content delivery services are described as
follows:
[0030] Direct Downloading Service: the second mobile terminal
requests the first mobile terminal in providing a list of file
directory it is willing to share, then, the second mobile terminal
downloads the designated content directly from the first mobile
terminal through a standard HTTP GET.
[0031] Redirect Downloading Service: a first mobile terminal acting
as a provider may direct a second mobile terminal acting as a
receiver in switching to download information from a home server of
the first mobile terminal. As such, this kind of download mode can
be used to overcome the restriction of transmission distance and
mobility, thus maintaining information delivery service. As shown
in FIG. 2, three files 1,2, and 3 are stored in the first mobile
terminal 10, and 5 additional files 1,2,3,4, and 5 are stored in a
home server 12. The first mobile terminal 10 may request and obtain
from home server 12 a copy of shared file list and determine a
direct download list through comparing the shared file list with
the list as requested by the second mobile terminal 14, then
provide the second mobile terminal 14 with the direct download
list, requesting it to switch to home server 12 for downloading the
files required. In this case, refer to FIG. 2 as a reference for
explanation. As shown in FIG. 2, only file 1 is delivered directly
from the first mobile terminal 10, though files 2 and 3 exist also
in the first mobile terminal 10, yet it may request the second
mobile terminal 14 switching to a home server 12 of the first
mobile terminal 10 in downloading files 2,3,4, and 5 through
different networks.
[0032] Continued Downloading service: in a process of mobile
content sharing, disconnection may happen, thus requiring
reconnection for continued downloading of file. The design of this
service may allow the second mobile terminal to continue data
delivery service before the end of a transmission deadline. The
second mobile terminal may continue the unfinished downloading work
as long as the second mobile terminal still keeps the file location
table of the home server.
[0033] In a system framework of the present invention, a secure
transaction means having authorization and verification mechanism
is utilized. As shown in FIG. 4, when the first mobile terminal 10
requests initiating a redirect downloading service, it will
initiate a secure transmission transaction, thus a home server 12
will be responsible for managing the process and status of the
transaction. The process of this transaction will be assigned a
transaction deadline, and this transaction deadline means the
entire process of transmission transaction, comprising: starting
from the moment that the first mobile terminal 10 informs the
second mobile terminal 14 and home server 12 of its intention for
downloading files, the second mobile terminal 14 may redirect and
continue downloading files until it has finished downloading all
the objects as required, unless any of the following conditions
occurs: the second mobile terminal 14 terminates the delivery
request, the transaction deadline expires or the intermission
between two successive downloadings exceeds a predetermined
interval, as such, ensuring the resources on home server 12 and the
connected network resources can be utilized effectively.
[0034] In addition, in the transaction process, in order to ensure
the home server 12 that the second mobile terminal 14 is
trustworthy, in the present invention, a simple and symmetric
double key protection mechanism is designed. Wherein, a pair of
double keys, namely, provider key and transaction key are utilized
as described as follows:
[0035] (1) Provider Key (P-Key): that is generated by a home server
12 and the first mobile terminal 10 in advance, and is used to
ensure the trust relationship of the two parties. The Provider Key
will be updated and refreshed periodically to avoid being cracked
after several times of usage.
[0036] (2) Transaction Key (T-Key): that is a temporary key having
transmission deadline of limited duration, and is generated
automatically by the home server 12 at the start of transaction.
The Transaction Key is effective only during the transaction, and
is used to ensure the verification of identification during the
transaction between the second mobile terminal 14 and home server
12. This will not be known to the second mobile terminal 14, and
the Transaction Key will be invalidated immediately after the
completion of a transaction, so as to avoid the possibility of
leaking the transaction key to an unauthorized user for arbitrarily
signing for downloading request. As such, in performing a redirect
downloading, the first mobile terminal 10 will request and obtain a
new transaction key from a home server 12, and this transaction key
will not be known to the second mobile terminal 14. In addition,
the transaction key will be invalidated immediately after the
completion of transaction, so as to avoid being imitated or
copied.
[0037] In the system framework of the present invention, data
transfer between the first mobile terminal, the home server, and
the second mobile terminal is conducted in a XML-RPC mode, and the
data of the two fields Identifier and Signature are used to verify
the identification and verification status of the home server and
the receiver (namely, the second mobile terminal) in a process of
Remote Procedure Call (RPC). Each of the RPC requests includes
identification verification information of RPC transmitter (namely,
the first mobile terminal), and that is used to verify if the
transmitter is trustworthy or having sufficient authority to carry
out the designated actions. Even more, the request has to include a
set of verification codes for preventing data from being tarnished
arbitrarily in executing actions not of the original design. Then,
the a RPC home server may compare this set of verification codes
with a verification code calculated by itself to determine if it is
correct. The canonical forms of Identifier and Signature are as
follows: [0038] Identifier :=#{P-Key}|(#{P-Key} & #{T-Key})
[0039] Signature :=MD5(#{DigestURL_Raw}) Wherein, Identifier is a
key portion, and that will not appear directly in the
connection.
[0040] Instead, it will first be stored in DigestURL_Raw for
calculating and obtaining Signature value through utilizing MD5
algorithm or any other suitable algorithms, then it will be added
into the connection and be used for verification. Since both
Provider Key and Transaction Key are unique in a transaction
process, such that RPC home server is able to determine if the
message provider is trustworthy through verifying the Signature
value.
[0041] In the present invention, a virtual file system is designed
and provided in a home server, and is structured over an original
file system, yet it does not have to reflect the directory
structure of the original file system. The directory structure of
virtual file system is formed by user-defined file and directory
names, such that each file and directory may have a meta-data
description item as shown in FIG. 3, plus some additional
information of management purpose, wherein, the Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) field is used to define specifically an actual type
URL and a virtual type URL. The file of an actual URL is located at
a corresponding position of an original file system, such as URL
:=/URLBase/AV_Dir/Picture/My.jpeg; while a virtual URL is a
temporary file position reference, and is generated dynamically by
the service corresponding to its name, such as
URL:=/URLBase/PicXXX.jpeg. Upon obtaining a virtual URL, the
virtual file system will transform it into an Actual URL for
presentation. The virtual URL is a set of dynamically generated
meaningless word string. As such, for each transaction, it is
required that a temporary access point be set up for the file
shared and delivered, and this virtual mappings are stored, such
that the second mobile terminal may request downloading files
through this temporary access point until the completion of the
transaction, then all the mappings and temporary access points
generated in this process will be invalidated automatically.
Therefore, this virtual file system and dynamic reference mapping
mechanism provide a content directory service that is simple to use
and secure. The dynamic reference mapping scheme can be utilized to
enhance security without causing additional burden. When obtaining
a virtual URL, the receiver may still performing file downloading
via HTTP GET.
[0042] Summing up the above, in order to remove the mobility
restriction in local area network, various existing network
technologies and standards are integrated in providing a secure
mobile content delivery mechanism and the support of asynchronous
transmission. In the present invention, home server is defined to
play an important role in power saving and mobility support. In
general, mobile handheld devices (MHDs) are battery-powered.
Therefore, the power consumption required for transmission of
information from a mobile handheld device to another mobile
handheld device is quite enormous, and this power consumption is
symmetric, since both parties must spend power on data
transmission. In the design of the present invention, an
information provider can guide a receiver in switching to a home
server having a stored copy for downloading files. The advantages
of adopting this kind of asynchronous mobile content delivery are
as follows: firstly, the home server on a fixed network may provide
larger data throughput, hereby shortening data transmission time;
secondly, the data provider can avoid long distance data
transmission, thus reducing energy consumption; and thirdly, both
data provider and data receiver are not restricted by the data
transmission distance between them, so that they can move freely
without having to be in a same network environment at the same
time. In this case, the home server may take over the data
transmission operation. As such, even if the original data provider
has switched to other network or even leave all the networks, the
process of file downloading and data transmission will not be
affected. In addition, in the present invention, a double key
verification mechanism is disclosed. Wherein, a Provider Key and a
Transaction Key are provided, and that are utilized respectively in
determining whether the home server and the data provider can trust
each other; and in safeguarding the identification verification for
the transaction between the data receiver and the home server.
Moreover, in the present invention, a virtual file system is
physically realized on a home server, such that a temporary access
point is established by the virtual file system for a requested
file in each transaction process, so that a data receiver can only
request for downloading file through this temporary access point,
thus, similarly, this temporary access point will be invalidated
immediately upon the completion of the transaction. As such,
through the application of a virtual file system and a dynamic
access point mechanism, a home server can be protected from any
illegal and unauthorized access.
[0043] The above detailed description of the preferred embodiment
is intended to describe more clearly the characteristics and spirit
of the present invention. However, the preferred embodiments
disclosed above are not intended to be any restrictions to the
scope of the present invention. Conversely, its purpose is to
include the various changes and equivalent arrangements which are
within the scope of the appended claims.
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