Method and apparatus for detecting unsolicited multimedia communications
View Patent ↗A service is configured to analyze multimedia communications to determine a likelihood that the communication is unsolicited. For example, the service may inspect e-mail messages, instant messaging messages, facsimile transmissions, voice communications, and video telephony, and analyze these forms of communication to determine whether an intended communication is unsolicited. In connection with voice and video telephony, a voice sample may be obtained from the caller and voice recognition may be performed on the sample to determine an identity of the person or the identity of the voice. The voice sample may also be used to determine the type of voice—i.e. if the voice is live, machine generated, or prerecorded. Where the call is a video telephony call, image recognition may be used to inspect an image of the person. The information obtained from voice recognition, voice type recognition, and image recognition may be used to detect whether the messages if from a known source of unsolicited communications.
1. A method of determining an identity of an entity placing a telephone call by an anti-SPX service to detect whether an unsolicited telephone call is a Spam Over Internet Telephony (SPIT) telephone call, the method comprising the steps of:
analyzing, by the anti-SPX service, signaling information associated with the telephone call;
obtaining, by the anti-SPX service, a voice sample associated with the entity placing the telephone call;
performing, by the anti-SPX service, a voice recognition process on the voice sample to obtain a voice signature associated with the entity placing the telephone call;
comparing, by the anti-SPX service, the voice signature against voice signatures of entities known to place SPIT be telephone calls; and
determining, by the anti-SPX service, if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call from the result of analyzing the signaling information and the result of the voice signature comparison.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of performing a voice type recognition process by the anti-SPX service.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the voice type recognition process is configured to determine if the voice sample is associated with a live person, a prerecorded voice, or a machine generated voice; and wherein the step of determining if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call further comprises using the result of the voice type recognition process.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a person associated with the voice from the voice signature; and wherein the step of determining if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call further comprises comparing the identity of the person to determine whether the person is a known source of SPX.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the voice sample is obtained in response to a question, the method further comprising the step of analyzing, by the anti-SPX service, a content of the voice sample; and wherein the step of determining if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call further comprises comparing the analyzed content with expected content.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the telephone call is a video telephone call, the method further comprising the step of obtaining, by the anti-SPX service, a video image associated with the video telephone call.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step of analyzing, by the anti-SPX service, the video image to obtain a caller identification from the video image; and wherein the step of determining if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call further comprises comparing video image with video images of people who are known sources of SPX.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising scoring, by the anti-SPX service, the telephone call, the score being associated with a likelihood that the telephone call is SPIT.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of analyzing the signaling information associated with the telephone call comprises detecting whether the call is part of a conference call; the method further comprising the step of detecting whether media associated with the telephone call is being transmitted to multiple destinations simultaneously; and wherein if the media is being transmitted to multiple destinations simultaneously and the signaling indicates that the call is not part of a conference call, the method further comprising the step of determining that the call is likely to be SPIT.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of detecting, by the anti-SPX service, whether media content associated with the telephone call has been previously transmitted to another destination; and wherein the step of determining if the telephone call is likely to be a SPIT telephone call further comprises using the result of the detecting to increase the likelihood that a telephone call is SPIT if the content has previously been transmitted to other destinations.