461 results about "Software agent" patented technology

The invention is a hierarchical backup system. The interconnected network computing devices are put into groups of backup cells. A backup cell has a manager software agent responsible maintaining and initiating a backup regime for the network computing devices in the backup cell. The backups are directed to backup devices within the backup cell. Several backup cells can be defined. A manager software agent for a particular cell may be placed into contact with the manager software agent of another cell, by which information about the cells may be passed back and forth. Additionally, one of the software agents may be given administrative control over another software agent with which it is in communication.

This invention provides a system, method, and software program for providing software intelligence to Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) tags. Utilizing the unique characteristics of the Service Grid, mobile software agents can relocate in close proximity to RFID tagged items. Once associated with the tag, these RFID agents migrate near where items are identified to provide local control, environmentally responsive policy, and ongoing permanent data capture & history. These RFID agents respond to events as circumstances require. They transport data and policy between supply-chain partners when the partners participate in a secure extranet. Enhanced service grids composed of distributed agents, comprising numerous services, facilitates supply-chain security and integration as virtual software service agents, including virtual RFID tags, are directed from one computer to another computer in response to changing conditions.

Apparatus for recording and collecting the installed location of cable modems in a cable data network comprises a network manager for maintaining and collecting cable modem location information. Components of the network manager maintains a software agent that manages a database of modem installation and status information. Responsive to a manager request, the component software agent provides the installation and status information to the network manager. The information is displayed as a map which can show the topology of the cable modem's location in the network with respect to other modems and other components of the network.

A method for voice activation of a software agent from a standby mode. In one embodiment, an audio recording (2) is buffered in an audio buffer (6) and at the same time, the audio recording is input to a secondary voice recognition process (7) which is economical in terms of energy and has an increased false positive rate. When a keyword is recognized, a primary voice recognition process (8) is activated from an inactive state, which converts the audio buffer to text and inputs it to a dialog system (9) which analyzes as to whether there is a relevant question made by the user. If this is the case, the user gets an acoustic reply (3), and if this is not the case, the dialog system and the primary voice recognition process immediately return to the inactive state and transfer the control to the secondary voice recognition process.

A billing system for a telecommunications network uses a monitoring software agent to monitor messages, indicative of individual calls on the network, passing between a service switching point and a service control point. Call record information is extracted and is stored in a local call record database. Information from each call record database is then passed on to a central database, using updating mobile agents, the central database being accessible to such agents and report building agents which can extract billing information as requested by an operator. By monitoring the messages as they pass, the system can provide real time billing information without needing to poll the switch at the service switching point.

Various gaming-related services are provided, including but not limited to security services, harm minimization services, player identification services, bonusing / progressive services, accounting services, financial / banking services, network tunneling services, cheating detection services, etc. Such services may be provided, at least in part, by software agents that can be configured for different platforms and / or operating systems. Some software-based player tracking methods of the invention can aggregate data from multiple devices used by a player for gaming.

A services provision system provides information services over one or more communications networks and has a software infrastructure divided into domains. Each domain has an intelligent software agent and this community of agents sits in a computing environment represented in each domain by a DPE kernel. The community of agents co-operates to provide service and service management functionality to a user. At least one of the agents is reconfigurable to change the functionality the system makes available. Reconfigurability is based on the use of a plurality of reusable software modules, the agent reconfiguring by selecting a new combination of modules. The software modules themselves incorporate rules, or policies, which determine process steps offered by the modules at run-time. These policies are external to the modules and may be loaded at run-time, allowing dynamic modification to functionality of the system. The system as a whole offers functionality associated with using services, providing them and managing them and the reconfigurability allows it to offer the different types of functionality in an efficient way. It also allows access control to functionality at different levels with particularly good security against fraudulent use.

A system is described that comprises a medical device on which is installed a version of software and a software agent communicatively coupled to the medical device without regard to the version of software installed on the medical device. An example of the medical device includes a defibrillator. The software agent may reside in a personal digital assistant and can be operated to communicate with the defibrillator to access the data stored in the defibrillator irrespective of the version of software of the defibrillator.

Apparatus for recording and collecting usage and other statistical data from components of a cable data network comprises a network manager for maintaining and collecting the statistics. Internet protocol addresses are associated with components of the network. The component maintains a software agent that manages a statistics database. Responsive to a manager request generated at a service provider defined time interval, the component software agent provides the usage statistics to the network manager in real-time during an Internet session with a host. When the host to Internet or other data connection is torn down due to failure, disconnect or inactivity time-out, remaining usage statistics data is collected and the session duration updated with the time of tear down. Usage statistics collected include the amount of data transferred to / from a host, the amount of data that is discarded due to insufficient resource capacity and amount of data that cannot be corrected despite forward error correction used in a downstream high capacity channel to the host. Data traps may be defined and downloaded to components of the network for implementation. As a result, billing of users of the cable data network can be usage sensitive and determined based on actual data transferred (including credit given for errored data) and / or time sensitive based on session duration.

In one embodiment, the present invention provides for receiving security events from a network device by a distributed software agent of a network security system, determining a priority of each received security event, and storing the security events in a plurality of prioritized event buffers based on the determined priorities for a period of time determined by a timer. Upon expiration of the timer, a batch of security events for transport to a security event manager of the network security system can be created by including security events in the batch in order of priority until the batch is full.

A system includes at least one telecommunications terminal having data processing capabilities, the telecommunications terminal being susceptible of having installed thereon software applications, wherein each software application has associated therewith a respective indicator adapted to indicate a level of security of the software application, the level of security being susceptible of varying in time; a software agent executed by the at least one telecommunications terminal, the software agent being adapted to conditionally allow the installation of software applications on the telecommunications terminal based on the respective level of security; a server in communications relationship with the software agent, the server being adapted to dynamically calculate the level of security of the software applications, and to communicate to the software agent the calculated level of security of the software applications to be installed on the telecommunications terminal.

An encrypted file storage solution consists of a cluster of processing nodes, external data storage, and a software agent (the “File System Watcher”), which is installed on the application servers. Cluster sizes of one node up to many hundreds of nodes are possible. There are also remote “Key Servers” which provide various services to one or more clusters. The preceding describes a preferred embodiment, though in some cases it may be desirable to “collapse” some of the functionality into a smaller number of hardware devices, typically trading off cost versus security and fault-tolerance.

In one embodiment, a method for detecting malicious software agents, such as domain-flux botnets. The method applies a co-clustering algorithm on a domain-name query failure graph, to generate a hierarchical grouping of hosts based on similarities between domain names queried by those hosts, and divides that hierarchical structure into candidate clusters based on percentages of failed queries having at least first- and second-level domain names in common, thereby identifying hosts having correlated queries as possibly being infected with malicious software agents. A linking algorithm is used to correlate the co-clustering results generated at different time periods to differentiate actual domain-flux bots from other domain-name failure anomalies by identifying candidate clusters that persist for relatively long periods of time. Persistent candidate clusters are analyzed to identify which clusters have malicious software agents, based on a freshness metric that characterizes whether the candidate clusters continually generate failed queries having new domain names.

A network security system is provided that receives information from various sensors and can analyse the received information. In one embodiment of the present invention, such a system receives a security event from a software agent. The received security event includes a target address and an event signature, as generated by the software agent. The event signature can be used to determine a set of vulnerabilities exploited by the received security event, and the target address can be used to identify a target asset within the network. By accessing a model of the target asset, a set of vulnerabilities exposed by the target asset can be retrieved. Then, a threat can be detected by comparing the set of vulnerabilities exploited by the security event to the set of vulnerabilities exposed by the target asset.

A platform independent model for exchanging information among numerous entities in a justice system with diverse system components is implemented in a hub and spoke arrangement. Each spoke includes a software agent that communicates with a system component of an entity of the justice system, translates from a common communication format to a communication format of the system component, and manages the timing of the flow of information to / from the system component. The hub includes an information broker that communicates with each agent in the common communication format, determines what information is needed by which entity, and routes the needed information to / from respective agents for the entities that need the information. The platform independent model includes a plurality of traceable and linked UML models that define the information broker from a business use case model through to a platform independent solution model for implementation on a given solution platform. Since these UML models are readily modifiable and traceable for changes to the justice system, they facilitate implementation of the system in a cost-effective manner from one customer to the next without requiring system redesign.

In a network of computer systems having a group of users subscribing to a service comprising restricted channels, a user applies for an action to be performed by an automated software agent. The agent initiates a poll of a predetermined group of subscribers soliciting votes for approving the action. When the poll is complete, the votes are tallied by the agent and compared with predetermined authorization rules. If the votes pass the rules test, the action is approved and performed by a software agent. The user in one embodiment is an automated software agent.

Devices, systems, and methods for allowing parents to view and track smart phone activities of their children can include one or more child software modules. The module can be installed on each child's smart phone. The module can access and extract data from or about more than one of the smart phone's other software applications, including at least two of the following: a texting application, a social media application, an image application that facilitates transmission or reception of images, and a web browser application. The module can further send the extracted data to an analysis server. The module can also monitor location data. Moreover, the system can include an analysis server that can identify potentially harmful language, images, and websites. Further, the system can include a parent portal. The parent portal can receive results from the analysis server.

A software agent for locally tracking a user's network interaction, such as web browsing, and providing targeted promotions with optional coupons to the user. The monitoring involves use of a downloaded file of network addresses and words potentially tailored to each individual user. The software agent locally compares network addresses and content of web sites accessed and search terms entered against the stored addresses and key words in the file. Upon detecting a match, the software agent contacts a system server to obtain a promotion with an optional coupon for the match, and displays an indication of the promotion or coupon to the user, providing the user with the option to view, decline, save, or defer the promotion. The user is provided with redeemable credits for viewing promotions, visiting the site of a merchant offering the promotion, completing a transaction, and spending at least a threshold dollar amount. The coupons can include coupons targeted to users geographically close to particular merchants so that the coupons can be printed and redeemed at the merchant's establishment. Transactions related to the promotions, whether completed online or in-store, are confirmed to demonstrate the efficacy of the promotions, award additional loyalty rewards to a user's account, or to compensate an advertiser or affiliate. Confirmation of in-store transactions may be accomplished by accessing transaction data routed through third-party payment networks used for credit and debit card transactions and cellular phone transactions and the like.

A system for detecting the occurrence of anomalies includes a plurality of spaced apart nodes, with each node having adjacent nodes, each of the nodes having one or more sensors associated with the node and capable of detecting anomalies, and each of the nodes having a controller connected to the sensors associated with the node. The system also includes communication links between adjacent nodes, whereby the nodes form a network. At least one software agent is capable of changing the operation of at least one of the controllers in response to the detection of an anomaly by a sensor.

An Internet-enabled means of distributing entertainment programming with embedded advertising in which the entertainment programming is customized according to consumers' stated preferences and the advertising is customized according to consumer demographics and also according to consumers' stated preferences. A computing system usable to create and distribute personalized entertainment and advertising content comprising computer hosts having software agents acting to administer a master digital library as well as end users' digital libraries, establish advertising bookings and insert advertising content, establish schedules of digital content for distribution to end users, identify digital content listed on a schedule but missing from the end user's digital library, distribute across a communications network digital content to end users, and decrypt and play or display the digital entertainment and advertising content. A communications network for exchanging information and data among said computer hosts and agents.

Various gaming-related services are provided, including but not limited to security services, harm minimization services, player identification services, bonusing / progressive services, accounting services, financial / banking services, network tunneling services, cheating detection services, etc. Such services may be provided, at least in part, by software agents that can be configured for different platforms and / or operating systems. Some software-based player tracking methods of the invention can aggregate data from multiple devices used by a player for gaming.

Various gaming-related services are provided, including but not limited to security services, harm minimization services, player identification services, bonusing / progressive services, accounting services, financial / banking services, network tunneling services, cheating detection services, etc. Such services may be provided, at least in part, by software agents that can be configured for different platforms and / or operating systems. Some software-based player tracking methods of the invention can aggregate data from multiple devices used by a player for gaming.

An encrypted file storage solution consists of a cluster of processing nodes, external data storage, and a software agent (the “File System Watcher”), which is installed on the application servers. Cluster sizes of one node up to many hundreds of nodes are possible. There are also remote “Key Servers” which provide various services to one or more clusters. The preceding describes a preferred embodiment, though in some cases it may be desirable to “collapse” some of the functionality into a smaller number of hardware devices, typically trading off cost versus security and fault-tolerance.

An electronic bill presentation and payment (EBPP) system that is able to obtain bills for its customers from scrape-enabled biller Web sites. The EBPP system has an interface which permits a customer to specify that the customer wishes the EBPP system to retrieve a customer's bills from a biller Web site at which the customer may access them. The customer provides his or her access information for the biller Web site to the EBPP system, which then uses a software agent to make scheduled scrapes of the biller Web site to obtain the customer's bill. The software agent scrapes not only bill summary information such as the account number, the statement date, the bill amount, the payment due date, the minimum amount and / or total amount due from the biller Web site, but also scrapes display information for the bill. The display information is the HTML that the biller Web site itself uses to display the bill. The agent cleans the HTML so that it can be displayed in the environment provided by the EBPP system. Both the bill summary information and the display information are incorporated into databases maintained by the EBPP system, which treats bills obtained from scrape-enabled Web sites in the same fashion as bills obtained from other sources.

A network security system can have a plurality of distributed software agents configured to collect security events from network devices. In one embodiment, the agents are configured to aggregate the security events. In one embodiment of the present invention, an agent includes a device interface to receive a security event from a network device, a plurality of aggregation profiles, and an agent aggregate module to select one of the plurality of aggregation profiles, and increment an event count of an aggregate event representing the received security event using the selected aggregation profile.

An operating system deployment arrangement provides a database connected to a network for use in monitoring the boot status of machines connected to sub-networks of the network. A workstation connected to a sub-network is adapted to act as a server for a pre-installation environment to machines newly connecting to the sub-network or at the same geographical location. The workstation carries a program for detecting boot initiation messages broadcast on the sub-network and for progressing booting of newly connecting machines in accordance with boot action data held by the database. In particular, the workstation also sends a software agent and operating system deployment processes to a newly connected machine and the agent takes over progression of the booting process from the workstation. The data held in the database for any one machine is updated as booting progresses. Flexibility is provided both in administration of the boot action data held in the database and by means of user interaction software loaded to a newly connected machine in the course of booting.