Stateless web content anti-automation

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for coordinating content transformation includes receiving, at a computer server subsystem and from a web server system, computer code to be served in response to a request from a computing client over the internet; modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system that could be determined from the computer code; generating transformation information that is needed in order to reverse the modifications of the computer code to obscure the operation of the web server system; and serving to the computing client the modified code and the reverse transformation information.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method for coordinating content transformation, the method comprising:
 receiving, at a computer server subsystem and from a web server system, computer code to be served in response to a request from a computing client over the internet;   modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system that could be determined from the computer code;   generating reverse transformation information that is needed in order to reverse the modifications of the computer code to obscure the operation of the web server system; and   serving, to the computing client, the modified code and the reverse transformation information.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein at least some of the reverse transformation information is encrypted so that code on the client computer cannot access the reverse transformation information. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the reverse transformation information comprises a nonce and ciphertext. 
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising receiving a subsequent request and the transformation information from the computing client, and using the transformation information to apply a reverse transformation to a portion of the subsequent request. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 4 , further comprising applying a private key held by the computer server system to the transformation information. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 5 , wherein the transformation information comprises an initiation vector for a text transformation process that has a forward function and an inverse backwards function. 
     
     
         7 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 4 , further comprising providing all or part of the request, with the portion of the request from the reverse transformation, to the web server system. 
     
     
         8 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 4 , wherein the subsequent request is received at a different server sub-system than a server sub-system that modified the computer code, and wherein the server systems do not communicate reverse transformation between each other. 
     
     
         9 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system comprises changing names of functions in the computer code. 
     
     
         10 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system comprises changing values of attributes in the computer code. 
     
     
         11 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , wherein modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system comprises changing values associated with at least one of a link, a form, a field, and a function in an HTML document. 
     
     
         12 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein modifying the computer code to obscure operation of the web server system comprises at least one of adding, removing, and rearranging content in a web document. 
     
     
         13 . A computer system for coordinating content transformation, the system comprising:
 a web server that is configured to provide a resource in the form of computer code to client computing devices in response to requests from the client computing devices; and   a security intermediary that is configured to (i) receive the resource from the web server before the resource is provided to the first client computing device, (ii) process the received resource, and (iii) transmit the processed resource and reverse transformation information to the first client computing device, wherein the reverse transformation information comprises information that is needed in order to reverse the modifications of the computer code to obscure the operation of the web server system.   
     
     
         14 . The computer system of  claim 13 , wherein processing the received resource includes
 (a) modifying the computer code for the received resource to obscure operation of the web server system, and   (b) supplementing the computer code for the received resource with instrumentation code that is programmed to execute on the first client computing device.   
     
     
         15 . The computer system of  claim 13 , wherein the security intermediary is further configured to receive, from instrumentation code that executes on the client computing devices, reports that the instrumentation code detected abnormal behavior at the client computing devices. 
     
     
         16 . The computer system of  claim 13 , wherein the report includes an indication that the a client computing device attempted to interact with an unmodified form of the computer code.