Apparatus, and an Associated Method, for Providing and Using Opaque Presence Indications in a Presence Service

• US 20100131754A1
• Filed: 11/18/2009
• Published: 05/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Research In Motion Limited (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: McColgan, Brian Edward, Klassen, Gerhard D., Bells, Matthew
• Granted Patent: US 8,386,769 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/153
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

An apparatus, and an associated method, enables presence information of a presentity to be retrieved by a watcher. Elements, or portions, of the presence information may be made selectively opaque (unreadable) to any but authorized watchers or other consumers of the presentity information.

Claims

1. A method for using presentity-provided presence information, said method comprising:

detecting at least one presentity presence indication;

forming an opaque representation of the presentity presence indication; and

providing for publication of a presentity presence document that includes the opaque representation of the presentity presence indication.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said forming the opaque representation comprises hashing the presentity presence indication.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said forming the opaque representation comprises encrypting the presentity presence indication.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said encrypting comprises encrypting a plurality of portions of the presentity presence information with a plurality of encryption keys, each portion forming an opaque representation portion containing watcher-targeted presence information.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein said encrypting is performed using a symmetric key.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein said encrypting is performed using an asymmetric key.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said detecting comprises detecting a plurality of presentity presence indications and wherein said forming comprises forming an opaque representation of at least one of the plurality of the presentity presence indications.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said forming comprises forming an opaque representation of fewer than all of the plurality of the presentity presence indications.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein said providing for publication of the presentity presence document further comprises storing the presentity presence document.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said providing for publication further comprises publishing a presentity presence/policy document that includes an encryption key.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein said forming the opaque representation occurs based on a time dependency.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein said forming the opaque representation is performed according to one of:

a location dependency and a time/location dependency.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a presence platform with a de-opaquer.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the de-opaquer decrypts the presence information when a communication link is not trusted.

15. A method for use by a watcher of presentity-originated presence information, said method comprising:

requesting the presence information; and

detecting a response to said requesting, the response including a de-opaquer to place the presence information in clear form.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the de-opaquer comprises a presentity-provided decryption key.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising detecting presence-platform-decrypted data delivered to the watcher.

18. An apparatus for using presentity-provided presence information, said apparatus comprising:

a detector configured to detect at least one presentity presence indication;

an indication opaquer configured to form an opaque representation of the presentity presence indication, detected by said detector, and

a publisher provider configured to provide for publication of a presentity presence document that includes the opaque representation of the presently presence indication.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein said detector is configured to detect a plurality of presentity presence indications, and wherein said indication opaquer is configured to form an opaque representation of at least one of the presentity presence indications.

20. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein the presentity presence document published by said publisher further comprises a de-opaquer.

21. The apparatus of claim 20 wherein the de-opaquer decrypts the presence information when a communication link is not trusted.

22. An apparatus for facilitating use of presentity provided presence information, said apparatus comprising:

a requester configured to request the presence information;

a clear-information generator usable to generate clear information from opaque information; and

a detector configured to detect a response to request made by said requestor.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein the clear-information generator uses an encryption key capable of decrypting any encrypted received opaque information.

24. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein the clear-information generator uses a hash validator capable of validating any hashed received opaque information.

25. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising a displayer configured to display the presence information.

26. The apparatus of claim 25 further configured to derive or compute presence indications based on one of:

opaque presence information;

non-opaque presence information; and

a combination of opaque and non-opaque presence information.

27. The apparatus of claim 26 further configured to derive or compute presence indications based on non-presence related information.