Peer-to-peer rendezvous system for minimizing third party visibility and method thereof

• US 10,334,037 B2
• Filed: 09/17/2014
• Issued: 06/25/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yaana Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Yaana Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Grootwassink, David, Puri, Rajesh, Hammer, Michael P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Trong H
• Application Number:
  US14/489,272
• Publication Number:
  US 20150281344A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,742 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/42 Anonymization, e.g. involving pseudonyms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2514 between local and global IP addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2575 using address mapping retrieval, e.g. simple traversal of user datagram protocol through session traversal utilities for NAT [STUN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2589 over a relay server, e.g. traversal using relay for network address translation [TURN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4535 using an address exchange platform which sets up a session between two nodes, e.g. rendezvous servers, session initiation protocols [SIP] registrars or H.323 gatekeepers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0827 involving distinctive intermediate devices or communication paths network architectures or network communication protocols using different networks H04L63/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0869 involving random numbers or seeds

Abstract

A method and system for enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) communication between a first device and a second device is disclosed. According to one embodiment, a P2P communication system includes a first peer agent serving a first peer, a second peer agent serving a second peer, and a rendezvous server. The rendezvous server updates a first IP address for the first peer agent to the second peer agent and a second IP address for the second peer agent to the first peer agent. The first peer agent and the second peer agent communicate with the rendezvous server by dropping and retrieving a plurality of dead-drop packages. A first dead-drop package of the plurality of dead-drop packages comprises a first alias that is known only to the first peer and the second peer. A second dead-drop package of the plurality of dead-drop packages comprises a second alias that is different from the first alias.

Claims

1. A system for establishing peer-to-peer (P2P) communication comprising:

a first peer agent serving a first peer;

a second peer agent serving a second peer;

a rendezvous server having a hardware processor for establishing in a network a first Internet Protocol (IP) address of the first peer for the first peer agent to the second peer agent and a second Internet Protocol (IP) address of the second peer for the second peer agent to the first peer agent, and updating at least one of the first IP address for the first peer agent to the second peer agent and the second IP address for the second peer agent to the first peer agent when at least one of the first and second IP addresses becomes obsolete;

wherein the first peer agent and the second peer agent communicate with the rendezvous server over the network by dropping and retrieving a plurality of dead-drop packages,

wherein a first dead-drop package of the plurality of dead-drop packages comprises a first alias identifying one of the first peer and the second peer, wherein the first alias is known only to the first peer and the second peer,

wherein a second dead-drop package of the plurality of dead-drop packages comprises a second alias that is different from the first alias; and

wherein anonymous certificates for the first peer and the second peer are used for a public key operation, the anonymous certificates having locally generated random identities and public keys.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of dead-drop packages is transported via a plurality of layers of an interconnected supporting transport network.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of layers comprises Network Address and Port Translators (NAPT).

4. The system of claim 1 further comprises a session traversal utilities for network address translation (STUN) server to determine the first IP address of the first peer and the second IP address of the second peer.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprises a traversal using relays around network address translation (TURN) server to interconnect a network path between the first peer and the second peer.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprises a random number generator (RNG) server, wherein the RNG server uses a random bit stream and generates the first alias or the second alias, an encryption key, and a random parameter to select a sequence of rendezvous servers to communicate the plurality of dead-drop packages between the first peer and the second peer.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the random bit stream generated by the RNG server is decoupled from an application of random bits.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the random bits are not re-used.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein a string of random bits generated by the RNG server is encoded as hex characters.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the system provides an initial boot-strapping process to exchange peer identities between the first peer and the second peer.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer and the second peer discover, create, and exchange IP addresses, ports, and cryptographic parameters to establish a direct network connection without an aid of an intermediate application server or proxy.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the first dead-drop package is used to establish an alternate path for communication when a direct network connection is lost.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein a locally entered nickname of first peer and the second peer is not transmitted over the network.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein an encryption key for encrypting the plurality of dead-drop packages is shared between the first peer and the second peer and is not escrowed on a third party server.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein application data of a peer application is encrypted on a peer client by a password.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer and the second peer non-deterministically hop among a plurality of rendezvous servers, and a sequence of the plurality of rendezvous servers is determined by a peer application.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the sequence of the plurality of rendezvous servers is randomly chosen.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the plurality of rendezvous servers is dispersed across multiple networks and geographies.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the rendezvous server is dynamically created and destroyed.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein there is no subscription relationship between the first peer and the second peer and the rendezvous server.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein there is no registry of the first peer and the second peer.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer and the second peer are asynchronously connected to the rendezvous server.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein naming and addressing of the rendezvous server is decoupled via a domain name server (DNS) or registries to map names to addresses.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the rendezvous server stores the plurality of dead-drop packages for a limited time.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein the rendezvous server does not maintain logs.

26. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer drops the first dead-drop package, and wherein the rendezvous server allows the first peer to determine a time to delete the first dead-drop package.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the first peer sends an explicit delete message to the rendezvous server.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein the first dead-drop package is deleted by a package timer.

29. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer drops the first dead-drop package and the second peer knows the first alias contained in the first dead-drop package, and wherein the rendezvous server allows the second peer to retrieve the first dead-drop package.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the second peer sends a request to the rendezvous server to retrieve the first dead-drop package that contains a plurality of aliases.

31. The system of claim 1, wherein a rendezvous time is randomly chosen and pre-arranged between the first peer and the second peer.

32. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer and the second peer asymmetrically use a disjoint set of rendezvous servers to exchange the plurality of dead-drop packages.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the first peer drops the first dead-drop package on a first rendezvous server and the second peer drops the second dead-drop package on a second rendezvous server.

34. The system of claim 1, wherein information needed to successfully pick-up a package and successfully decode the first drop-dead package is pre-arranged.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the information comprises the first alias, the second alias, an encryption key, location information of the rendezvous server, a time of a package drop, and a package type.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the information is pre-arranged across the plurality of dead-drop packages.

37. The system of claim 1, wherein the first peer and the second peer use an onion router network to hide the first IP address and the second IP address.

38. The system of claim 1, wherein the first dead-drop package is a uniform nondescript encrypted package.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the first dead-drop package is padded to achieve a uniform size to minimize traffic analysis.

40. The system of claim 38, wherein the first dead-drop package has an encrypted part encrypted with an encryption key and an unencrypted part.

41. The system of claim 40, wherein the unencrypted part reveals an identity of the first peer or the second peer.

42. The system of claim 40, wherein information needed to establish communication between the first peer and the second peer is carried in the encrypted part.

43. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a status of a presence of a peer.

44. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a current set of IP addresses and ports to directly connect to a peer.

45. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a sequence of aliases to use to communicate with a peer.

46. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a sequence of a plurality of rendezvous servers to search.

47. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a sequence of times to search a rendezvous server of a plurality of rendezvous servers.

48. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a sequence of encryption keys to decrypt dead-drop packages.

49. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a public key to use for a peer.

50. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a ciphersuite to decrypt a dead-drop package.

51. The system of claim 40, wherein the encrypted part contains a set of cipher parameters to decrypt a dead-drop package.

52. The system of claim 40, wherein the encryption key is changed after each use or exposure to a rendezvous server.

53. The system of claim 40, wherein the encryption key is changed after a prearranged period of time.

54. The system of claim 1, wherein a particular alias contained in a particular dead-drop package is changed each time the particular alias is exposed on the rendezvous server.

55. The system of claim 54, wherein the particular alias is changed based on a pre-arranged period of time.

56. The system of claim 54, wherein the particular alias identifies a sender or a receiver of the particular dead-drop package.

57. The system of claim 41, wherein different aliases are used for different peers.