WIRELESS DATA PRIVACY MAINTAINED THROUGH A SOCIAL NETWORK

• US 20140280941A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Maguire, Yael
• Granted Patent: US 9,325,778 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

In one embodiment, one or more servers providing an on-line service send a token to a first client computing device associated with a first user of the on-line service, the token being generated by the servers based at least in part on a user identifier of the first user; the serves receive the token from a second client computing device associated with a second user of the on-line service, the token being sent to the second client computing device from the first client computing device through a wireless connection; the servers verify the token based at least in part on the user identifier of the first user; the servers determine data accessible to the second user if the token is verified; the servers also send to the second client computing device at least some of the data accessible to the second user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

by one or more servers of a system providing an on-line service, sending a token to a first client computing device associated with a first user of the on-line service, the token being generated by the servers based at least in part on a user identifier of the first user;

by the servers, receiving the token from a second client computing device associated with a second user of the on-line service, the token being sent to the second client computing device from the first client computing device through a wireless connection;

by the servers, verifying the token based at least in part on the user identifier of the first user;

by the servers, determining data accessible to the second user if the token is verified; and

by the servers, sending to the second client computing device at least some of the data accessible to the second user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data accessible to the second user comprises the user identifier of the first user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the verifying the token is further based on respective locations associated with the first and second client computing devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the token expires after being verified by the servers.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending the token to the first client computing device is through a secured connection between the first client computing device and the servers.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless connection is based on a Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, peer-to-peer cellular, or Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) protocol.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless connection comprises a third client computing device associated with a third user of the on-line service.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the system is a social-networking system comprising a graph comprising a plurality of nodes and edges connecting the nodes, at least a first node in the graph corresponding to the first user and a second node in the graph corresponding to the second user;

the on-line service is a social-networking service provided by the social-networking system; and

the verifying the token is further based on a least number of edges traversed in the graph from the first node to the second node.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the data accessible to the second user comprises a list of nodes in the graph, each node of the list of nodes connecting to the first and second nodes.