Telephonic communications – Reception of calling information at substation in wireline... – Extracting call id from transmitted signal
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-17
2001-11-27
Kuntz, Curtis (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
Reception of calling information at substation in wireline...
Extracting call id from transmitted signal
C379S142060, C379S142040
Reexamination Certificate
active
06324271
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a system and method for caller identification, and more particularly to a system, method, and computer readable medium for implementing a method for authentication of caller identification for telephone calls.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Conventional calling line identification (CLID) and the associated display terminals are now known in the market. Known CLID services deliver the directory number, subscriber name or business name associated with the calling telephone line rather than the callers true identity. Human recognition of the caller, if known to the called party, must be relied on for verifying a caller's identity. However the value of human recognition is limited by the fact that the caller may not be known to the called party, or the called party may be a machine rather than a person. Thus known CLID services fail to provide an assured identity of the caller that can be acted on reliably.
Consequently the CLID cannot be acted on with certainty since the same CLID is delivered regardless of who actually places the call. For example, when all members of a household share the same CLID associated with a subscriber number, the displayed name and number does not identify which of several family members is making the call. If a call is placed by an individual away from their customary phone as would occur for a business traveller at a payphone, hotel room, or colleague's desk, the caller's personal identity is not delivered. In some situations the privacy of the caller may be violated since the caller's physical location may unwittingly be disclosed by CLID. These limitations of CLID inhibit its use in providing preferential or customized treatment for the caller regardless of location, and in automatic processing of the call in a call handling telephone switching or computer processing systems. In addition, the unreliability of CLID in providing actual caller identity precludes its use as a non-repudiation mechanism in situations, such as a phone order to a stock broker, where caller identification is critical.
A known approach to addressing the limitation of CLID is to have a computer telephony system answer the call and prompt the caller for an identifier which is then used to route the call or perform a database lookup. This however precludes the use of the caller's identity to provide selective treatment (e.g. forwarding) of the call prior to ringing the terminating device. This approach is also vulnerable to fraud since an identifier can easily be intercepted by a passive wiretap or, for example, guessed from the caller's name. For example, a known system now on the market uses the first three letters of the caller's name as the identifier.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/20681 filed Dec. 11, 1998, to D. B. Gutzmann, entitled “Network calling party identification, authentication and routing in response thereto. This application provides an approach based on using an intrinsic property of the calling party, such as an audible utterance, which is compared with stored representations of a voice profile, using voice recognition technology. Alternatively, other biometric information such as a fingerprint or facial image may be used. Nevertheless such an approach requires an appropriate system and terminal equipment for collection of intrinsic information, storage of representations and processing of such information for authentication, which may not be possible with existing Calling Line ID base computer telephony systems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Thus, the present invention seeks to provide a system and method for caller identification which avoids or circumvents the above mentioned problems.
Thus according to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a process for caller identification comprising: certification of caller identification (CCID), wherein certification comprises: receiving from a caller called party information and a token associated with caller identification, performing authentication of caller identification using the token, and during alerting of a called party line, sending to the terminating set authentication information and caller information including certified caller identification.
Preferably, the step of performing authentication comprises authentication with a time varying cryptographic token.
This enhancement of CLID is called Certified Caller ID (CCID). CCID overcomes the above mentioned problems of identification of a caller, rather than a calling telephone line, since the identity of the caller is linked to the use of a token by the caller.
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a system for caller identification comprising certification of caller identification (CCID) comprising: means for receiving from a caller called party information and a token associated with caller identification, means for performing authentication of caller identification using the token, and means sending to the terminating set authentication information and caller information including certified caller identification, during alerting of a called party line.
Advantageously, the means for performing authentication comprises means for authentication with a time varying cryptographic token and provides certified caller ID which is a significant enhancement to existing calling line identification services, e.g. calling number display and calling name display, to provide the terminating end of a telephone call with a cryptographically-certified identity of the caller rather than the identity associated with the calling telephone line.
Another aspect of the invention provides a computer readable medium for implementing a method for caller identification with certification of caller identification (CCID), wherein certification comprises: receiving from a caller called party information and a token associated with caller identification, performing authentication of caller identification using the token, and during alerting of a called party line, sending to the terminating set authentication information and caller information including certified caller identification.
In the operation of CCID, the caller's identity is typically authenticated by a token, such as a smart card or other integrated circuit device which is capable of executing a cryptographic authentication protocol. One such integrated circuit device comprises a tamper-proof time-keeping and encryption mechanism that would generate a time-varying Personal Identification Number (PIN). A less secure variation of CCID could, at the option of the service provider, indicate that the call has been certified if the call were placed using a telephone calling card with a standard PIN. Alternatively, a more secure variation could be implemented in which the authentication took place in conjunction with a known biometric confirmation mechanism such as a fingerprint scanning, voice recognition, iris scanning of the eye, or hand characterization. Since different authentication mechanisms may be used for CCID, it is envisaged that a certification level would be associated with each call and delivered to the terminating end together with the reserved symbol that denotes that the identity of the caller has been certified. The individual or equipment accepting the call could then act on the certification level as appropriate.
Beneficially, CCID works in conjunction with several associated Customer Local Area Signalling Services (CLASS) such as Selective Call Acceptance, Selective Call Forwarding and Distinctive Ring to provide special call treatment based on the identity of the caller.
CCID would also provide certified caller identity to computer systems across a standard Computer Telephony Interface (CTI) so that a database lookup could be performed prior to accepting the call, and/or the call could be given preferential treatment in a call centre using an Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system. Advantageously, CCID uses the existing MDMF protocol for calling number and calling name delivery w
Gilby Christian P.
O'Shaughnessey Patrick Michael
Sawyer W. Donald
Barnie Rexford
de Wilton Angela C.
Kuntz Curtis
Nortel Networks Limited
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