PROTOCOL FOR SHARING INFORMATION IN A TRUSTED CIRCLE USING PEER TO PEER METHODOLOGY

• US 20080130522A1
• Filed: 11/30/2006
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Fischer, Donald, Pennington, Havoc
• Granted Patent: US 8,762,542 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/255
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1044 Group management mechanisms management of multicast group membership H04L12/185; reconfiguring of node membership in a computing system to eliminate errors G06F11/1425

Abstract

An embodiment relates generally to a method of providing peer-to-peer services. The method includes selecting a peer-to-peer service and determining multiple participants from a social network to form a set of known peers. The method also includes executing the peer-to-peer service from the set of known peers using a peer-to-peer overlay.

Claims

1. A method of providing peer-to-peer services, the method comprising:

selecting a peer-to-peer service;

determining multiple participants from a social network to form a set of known peers; and

executing the peer-to-peer service from the set of known peers using a peer-to-peer overlay.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the peer-to-peer overlay is one of Bit-Torrent, KaZaa, CHORD, CAN and Freenet.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying a list of members of the social network; and

selecting a subset of the list of members to form the set of known peers.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving the set of known peers from the social network in response to the invocation of the peer-to-peer overlay.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising associating a respective computer of each participant of the multiple participants as a peer computer in the peer-to-peer network.

6. An apparatus comprising means to implement the method of claim 1.

7. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.

8. A method of providing peer-to-peer services, the method comprising:

invoking a peer-to-peer service; and

executing the peer-to-peer service based on a list of participants from a social network.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising retrieving the list of participants from the social network.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising creating a peer-to-peer network based on the list of participants, wherein each computer associated with a participant becomes a peer in the peer-to-peer network.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the list of participants is predetermined by a user.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the list of participants includes participants of the social network of the user.

13. An apparatus for providing peer-to-peer services, comprising:

a memory configured to store computer program code and data;

a secure peer module configured to interface with the memory; and

an interface configured to interface with the secure peer module and provide a communication port for the secure peer module, wherein in the secure peer module is configured to receive a selection of a peer-to-peer service, determine multiple participants from a social network to form a set of known peers, and execute the peer-to-peer service from the set of known peers using a peer-to-peer overlay.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the peer-to-peer overlay is one of Bit-Torrent, KaZaa, CHORD, CAN and Freenet.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the secure peer module is configured to display a list of members of the social network and receive a selection of a subset of the list of members to form the set of known peers.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the secure peer module is further configured to retrieve the set of known peers from the social network in response to the invocation of the peer-to-peer overlay by the secure peer module.

17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the secure peer module is further configured to associate the respective computer of each participant of the multiple participants as a peer computer in the peer-to-peer network.

18. A system for providing peer-to-peer services, the system comprising:

a plurality of computing platforms, each platform associated with a respective participant;

a network configured to interconnect the plurality of computing platform; and

a secure peer module configured to execute on a subset of the plurality of computing platforms, wherein the secure peer module is configured to receive a selection of a peer-to-peer service on a destination computing platform, determine multiple participants from a social network associated with the destination computing platform to form a set of known peers, and execute the peer-to-peer service from the set of known peers using a peer-to-peer overlay.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the secure peer module is configured to display a list of members of the social network formed from the subset of plurality of computing platforms and receive a selection of a subset of the list of members to form the set of known peers.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the secure peer module is further configured to retrieve the set of known peers from the social network in response to the invocation of the peer-to-peer overlay by the secure peer module.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the secure peer module is further configured to associate the respective computing platform of each participant of the multiple participants as a peer computer in the peer-to-peer network.