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Updated: Jul 20, 2004 |
- Can my search activities on Delphion be intercepted because I'm conducting work over the Internet?
- How can I tell if I'm operating under SSL?
- I have a slow connection, can I turn SSL off so my pages display more quickly?
- What if someone hacks into Delphion's servers?
- Does Delphion track my searches?
- What if your web log files are subpoenaed for litigation?
- What if I download patents? You do have records of that, don't you?
- How are my Work Files and Saved Searches protected?
- How do you ensure that my data is never lost?
- What about information stored in the Delphion offices? How is it protected?
- How can I be sure that your servers will be available when I need them?
- Unlike some other Internet services, Delphion automatically provides Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) connections for Unlimited level subscribers, the level at which most corporate customers subscribe. The SSL security protocol provides an https secured connection that supports 128-bit encryption of all requests to and from the Delphion website. This is the same technology that most websites use to encrypt credit card information over the Internet. Therefore, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to hack into an individual's use of the Delphion website while they are using https. Https connection is also used for all e-commerce transactions conducted on Delphion at all user levels (including Basic and Premier).
In addition, the search function is conducted on separate search servers.These search servers never directly communicate with the user's web browser, and neither the IP address nor any other user information is passed to them.
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You can confirm that you're operating under SSL by looking at the address bar in your web browser — if it begins with https (rather than http), then you're working in a secured environment.
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If you are an Unlimited subscriber, SSL is normally used for your whole session on Delphion. You can, however, go to My Account... Preferences... and turn SSL off, and this may improve performance over slower connections. Even with SSL off, however, certain activities (such as logging in, purchasing, updating registration information, and creating or editing Work Files and Saved Searches) are always encrypted for your safety. For Premier subscribers and Basic users, SSL is always on those same encrypted activities and not available for the rest of your session.
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Like many commercial organizations, Delphion employs multiple firewalls to protect its servers as well as a dedicated security team. In addition, we leverage proactive security scans and security updates to prevent attacks on our systems.
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No. As stated in the Privacy Policy posted on the Delphion website, Delphion never has, and never will "mine" the search strings submitted by users to our site for any reason. We will continue to do everything in our power to protect the privacy of our customers' searches. We collect only the information we need to provide accurate invoices to our customers and improve the quality and usefulness of our services to our users. As part of its Privacy Policy, Delphion complies with the Principles set forth in the U.S.-E.U. Safe Harbor Agreement concerning privacy standards. Delphion's full Privacy Policy is located at http://www.delphion.com/about-privacy.
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In truth, if someone was requesting log information in support of litigation, they have as much right to request the logs of your internal systems as our commercial web-based system. Even if we did have to respond to a subpoena, the amount of information we could provide would be very limited. We do not retain log files for an extended period of time, and we cannot reconstruct how users used the site even if requested, as we do not associate user IDs to specific searches.
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We maintain user log information long enough to generate a valid invoice or charge for chargeable services. For your convenience, we allow you to re-download a patent at no charge for a period of 30 days after you originally download it. After that period, we remove the detailed information about which patents were downloaded. From that point on, the only data we store is the fact that a patent was downloaded, but not the details about which patent was downloaded.
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Delphion requires that each user have a personal unique user ID and password. This helps to protect any data you've stored on our site.
Additionally, Work Files and Saved Searches are stored in password-protected databases that are not accessible to the outside world. Extensive knowledge of the database structure would be needed to correlate Work Files and Saved Searches to specific user IDs.
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The database where Work Files and Saved Searches are stored is on mirrored disks, and there is also a separate mirrored database. Full backups of the database are performed twice per week. Backup tapes are stored on-site and copies are also shipped off-site for disaster recovery. Between backups we can also recover the database from log files, which are on different disks.
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In addition to protecting sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing, accounts receivable or customer service representatives) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment.
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Delphion employs more than 40 IBM servers to deliver its web-based intellectual property research services. Every component is redundant, including redundant power via two separate circuits. In addition, we have backup power supplies (UPS and generators). This provides a reliable network with no single point of failure. We also leverage RAID disk technology to ensure we do not lose data due to disk failure. Additionally, the servers are monitored 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
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