CONTEXT DISCOVERY FOR MOBILE DEVICE
Security is enhanced for a user of a mobile communications device by monitoring device usage and modifying an operational context for device usage. By monitoring current activities of the mobile communications device, a current context for operation of the mobile communications device is identified, and the current context indicates that a first activity is scheduled to be performed by a first resource. However, upon determining that the first resource may not be sufficient to perform the first activity, an alternative resource for performing the first activity is identified, and the current context is modified to substitute the alternative resource for the first resource in order to perform the first activity.
1 . On a mobile communications device having a resource prediction system including a user data subsystem, an intelligence subsystem and a policy enforcement subsystem, a method comprising:
collecting, by the user data subsystem, activity information from a plurality of source context elements for the mobile communications device, each source context element corresponding to a source of the activity information regarding a usage of at least one of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
analyzing, by the intelligence subsystem, the collected activity information to discover context situations and context behaviors that characterize usage of the mobile communications device, a context behavior being at least one of a sequence of context situations or a combination of context situations, each context situation describing a single activity involving the usage of at least one of resources, applications, or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors in the user data subsystem;
authoring, by the policy enforcement subsystem, a plurality of policy rules for allocation of resources during operation of the mobile communications device, the plurality of policy rules being based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors; and
deploying, by the policy enforcement subsystem, the plurality of policy rules on the mobile communications device.
2 . The method of claim 1 , the storing step further comprising:
assigning labels to the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors.
3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
automatically discovering and assigning labels to the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors based on at least one of data analysis techniques, clustering techniques, data mining techniques and heuristics.
4 . The method of claim 1 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors as a hierarchical arrangement of contexts in a context ontology.
5 . The method of claim 4 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors as a lattice having a plurality of nodes, each node representing one of the discovered stored context situations.
6 . The method of claim 5 , each node having properties of the source context element that correspond to the source of the activity information.
7 . The method of claim 5 , each node having properties of a high level context situation, and when the high level context situation includes at least one low level context situation, each node also has at least one value from the at least one low level context situation, or a processed combination of a plurality of values from a plurality of the low level context situations.
8 . The method of claim 6 , each node further including properties of a constituent context element related to the source context element.
9 . The method of claim 4 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors using a hierarchical clustering method to create a dendrogram over combinations of context elements.
10 . The method of claim 1 , the analyzing step further comprising:
using analytical techniques to discover patterns of resource usage in the collected activity information, including clustering techniques, data mining techniques and machine learning techniques.
11 . The method of claim 4 , the authoring step further comprising:
authoring policy rules to modify at least one of a setting, a configuration or a state of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device for at least one of the contexts based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors.
12 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
predicting resource usage for at least one of the contexts based on the discovered context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors.
13 . A method for resource prediction on a mobile communications device, comprising:
collecting, by a server, activity information from a plurality of source context elements for a mobile communications device, each source context element corresponding to a source of the activity information regarding usage of at least one of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
analyzing, by server, the collected activity information to discover context situations and context behaviors that characterize usage of the mobile communications device, a context behavior being at least one of a sequence of context situations or a combination of context situations, each context situation describing a single activity involving the usage of at least one of resources, applications, or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
storing, by the server, the discovered context situations and the discovered context context behaviors;
authoring, by the server, a plurality of policy rules for allocation of resources during operation of the mobile communications device, the plurality of policy rules being based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors; and
deploying the policy rules to the mobile communications device.
14 . The method of claim 13 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors as a hierarchical arrangement of contexts in a context ontology.
15 . The method of claim 14 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors as a lattice having a plurality of nodes, each node representing one of the discovered stored context situations.
16 . The method of claim 14 , the storing step further comprising:
storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors using a hierarchical clustering method to create a dendrogram over combinations of context elements.
17 . The method of claim 13 , the analyzing step further comprising:
using analytical techniques to discover patterns of resource usage in the collected activity information, including clustering techniques, data mining techniques, and machine learning techniques.
18 . The method of claim 14 , the authoring step further comprising:
authoring policy rules to modify at least one of a setting, a configuration or a state of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device for at least one of the contexts based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors.
19 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
predicting resource usage for at least one of the contexts based on the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors.
20 . A resource prediction system for a mobile communications device, comprising:
a user data subsystem configured to collect activity information from a plurality of source context elements for a mobile communications device, each source context element corresponding to a source of the activity information regarding a usage of at least one of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device, and to store the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors;
an intelligence subsystem configured to analyze the collected activity information to discover context situations and context behaviors that characterize usage of the mobile communications device, a context behavior being at least one of a sequence of context situations or a combination of context situations, each context situation describing a single activity involving the usage of at least one of resources, applications, or operating systems of the mobile communications device; and
a policy enforcement subsystem configured to author a plurality of policy rules for allocation of resources during operation of the mobile communications device, the plurality of policy rules being based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors, and to deploy the policy rules on the mobile communications device.
21 . A resource prediction system for a mobile communications device, comprising:
an activity monitor configured to collect activity information from a plurality of source context elements for a mobile communications device, each source context element corresponding to a source of the activity information regarding a usage of at least one of resources, applications or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
an analysis engine configured to analyze the collected activity information to discover context situations and context behaviors that characterize usage of the mobile communications device, a context behavior being at least one of a sequence of context situations or a combination of context situations, each context situation describing a single activity involving the usage of at least one of resources, applications, or operating systems of the mobile communications device;
a context store configured for storing the discovered context situations and the discovered context behaviors; and
a policy manager configured to author a plurality of policy rules for allocation of resources during operation of the mobile communications device, the plurality of policy rules being based on the discovered stored context situations and the discovered stored context behaviors, and to deploy the policy rules on the mobile communications device.