Degrees of separation for handling communications
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient;
accessing a contact list associated with the intended recipient, the contact list of the intended recipient identifying at least one user identifier;
accessing a contact list associated with the at least one user identifier;
determining, based on the contact list of the intended recipient and the contact list of the at least one user identifier, whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and
determining, using at least one processor, whether the communication is a spam communication based on whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A sender'"'"'s degrees of separation from a recipient may be used to aid in spam filtering or to otherwise handle a communication. The “degrees of separation” represent a metric used to quantify whether/how the recipient is linked to the sender through intermediary people or other entities. For example, a recipient may know a first user (first degree of separation) and the first user may know a second user (second degree of separation) who knows the sender of an e-mail. In this case, the sender is separated from the recipient by two degrees of separation (by two other contact). A level of “trust” or “legitimacy” about a sender'"'"'s communication can be inferred by looking at whether the sender is linked to an intended recipient. Typically, user contact lists are evaluated to determine the number of degrees (or hops) are required to link or relate two users.
305 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
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receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient; accessing a contact list associated with the intended recipient, the contact list of the intended recipient identifying at least one user identifier; accessing a contact list associated with the at least one user identifier; determining, based on the contact list of the intended recipient and the contact list of the at least one user identifier, whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and determining, using at least one processor, whether the communication is a spam communication based on whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing programmable instructions, which when executed by at least one processor, causes the processor to perform a method comprising:
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receiving a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient; accessing a contact list associated with the intended recipient, the contact list of the intended recipient identifying at least one user identifier; accessing a contact list associated with the at least one user identifier; determining, based on the contact list of the intended recipient and the contact list of the at least one user identifier, whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and determining, using at least one processor, whether the communication is a spam communication based on whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An apparatus comprising:
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a memory device storing instructions; at least one processor executing the instructions to; receive a communication from a sender, wherein the communication is directed to an intended recipient; access a contact list associated with the intended recipient, the contact list of the intended recipient identifying at least one user identifier; access a contact list associated with the at least one user identifier; determine, based on the contact list of the intended recipient and the contact list of the at least one user identifier, whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than a threshold number of degrees of separation; and determine whether the communication is a spam communication based on whether the sender and the intended recipient are linked by less than the threshold number of degrees of separation. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification