FIGURE 10 is a diagram showing four aspects of composite
files 0250, the primary output of the system and method 0110.
The content 1010 of composite files 0250 is fragments
1620, drawn from original data files 0220, disguised, and interspersed in random and
unpredictable ways, and padded as necessary to create composite segments 1652. Each composite
segment 1652 is further camouflaged before it is written out or appended to a composite file
0250.
The size 1020 of composite files 0250 is always a multiple
of 1,024 bytes. Composite files 0250 are written out in segments of 65,536 bytes, or some
lesser multiple of 1,024 bytes when there are no further original data files 0220. To be
precise, all composite files 0250 are a multiple of 65,536 bytes in size, with the exception
of the last "dispersion count" 0410 composite files; these last are smaller, but still a
multiple of 1,024 bytes in size. Padding with random bytes is added as necessary to fill
out the fragment heap 1651 into a composite segment 1652 with the appropriate multiple of
1,024 bytes.
The count 1030 of composite files 0250 is always equal
to or some multiple of the dispersion count 0410 (2 to 16) in any one privacy protected
archive 0261. The upper bound is the highest multiple of the dispersion count 0410 where
that multiple is less than 121. When about 7.5 megabytes (120 times 65,536 bytes) have been
written out, all up to 120 possible composite files 0250 are in use, and further composite
segments 1652 are appended starting over again at the first composite file 0250 and adding
to the end of each successive composite file in order, repeating as necessary until all
incoming original data files 0220 have been processed.
Names 1040 of composite files are as set out in names
for output files 0451. In other words, composite files 0250 all have meaningless names of
one alphabetic character followed by a combination of seven alphabetic characters and/or
numeric digits, with the suffix ".PVT" added to the name. The first one, two, or three
characters may be overridden and made uniform if the user has selected a prefix 0450
for output file names.
