Storage and recovery of digital data based on social network

• US 10,026,067 B2
• Filed: 06/23/2015
• Issued: 07/17/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AirBNB Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bianchi, Silvia C. S., Braz, Alan, Candello, Heloisa Caroline de Souza Pereira, Pinhanez, Claudio S.
• Primary Examiner(s): GOFMAN, ALEX N
• Application Number:
  US14/747,253
• Publication Number:
  US 20160239814A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,120 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/11 File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots file system backup G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/223 based on the use of peer-to-peer networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/384 using social networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Backup and restore of digital data may utilize online social network parameters of a user to determine a number of parts into which to divide digital data and distribute the parts. A list of friends from the social network friends may be selected, e.g., based on a relationship to the user in the social network, to store the parts. The parts may be stored in a friend'"'"'s device memory, each of the parts stored with a different friend. The digital data may be reconstructed by obtaining a threshold number of parts from the friends.

Claims

1. A method of backing up digital data, comprising:

detecting a backup event trigger to backup digital data representing digital cash of a user;

retrieving online social network profile of the user;

determining parameters associated with the digital data, the user, and social network friends of the user, the parameters associated with the user and the social network friends of the user determined at least from the online social network profile of the user;

determining a number of parts and a threshold based on the parameters, wherein the threshold is defined to be less than or equal to the number of parts, the threshold representing a minimum number of parts required to restore the digital data, wherein the parameters comprise at least an expiration date associated with the digital cash, and wherein the threshold is set to be smaller for an expiration date that is approaching than an expiration date that is farther away;

dividing the digital data using one or more of secret sharing and splitting method into the number of parts;

selecting a list of friends from the social network friends to store the number of parts;

storing a part of the digital data divided into the number of parts in a respective friend'"'"'s device, each of the parts stored with a different friend in the list of friends;

requesting from the friend the part of the digital data and retrieving from the memory associated with the friend the part of the digital, to retrieve at least the threshold number of parts from the threshold number of friends; and

reconstructing the digital data using the one or more of secret sharing and splitting method, based on the threshold number of parts of the digital data retrieved from the threshold number of friends.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from a friend'"'"'s device a friend'"'"'s digital data part and storing the friend'"'"'s digital data part in a device of the user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the parameters comprise at least one or more of value of the digital cash and expiration date of the digital cash.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameters comprises one or more combinations of number of the social network friends of the user, number of social network connections of the user, social network attributes, relationships between the connections, degree of the relationships, interactivity among the connections, number of mutual friends among the user and the social network friends, number of interactions among the social network friends and the user, availability, location and time of the interactions.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameters associated with the user comprises one or more combinations of geographical location where the user uses the digital data, frequency of use at a location and timeframe and type of network via which the user uses the digital data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of friends is prioritized based on a relationship type between the user and the list of friends.