Group formation using anonymous broadcast information
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving, at a trusted service, tokens that do not identify a particular device, at least some of the tokens having been received by a first device from a first plurality of devices and at least some of the tokens having been received by a second device from a second plurality of devices, the tokens having corresponding timestamps;
comparing, at the trusted service, at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the first device to at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the second device;
based on the comparison, determining, at the trusted service, that the first device and the second device have collected one or more matching tokens within a first timeframe;
identifying, at the trusted service, users associated with the first device and the second device; and
creating, at the trusted service, a group for the identified users.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A number of devices co-located at a geographic location can broadcast and receive tokens. Tokens can be exchanged using a communication link having limited communication range. Tokens that are received by a device can be stored locally on the device and/or transmitted to a trusted service operating remotely on a network. In some implementations, the tokens can be stored with corresponding timestamps to assist a trusted service in matching or otherwise correlating the tokens with other tokens provided by other devices. The trusted service can perform an analysis on the tokens and timestamps to identify devices that were co-located at the geographic location at or around a contact time which can be defined by the timestamps. A group can be created based on results of the analysis. Users can be identified as members of the group and invited to join the group.
14 Citations
23 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
receiving, at a trusted service, tokens that do not identify a particular device, at least some of the tokens having been received by a first device from a first plurality of devices and at least some of the tokens having been received by a second device from a second plurality of devices, the tokens having corresponding timestamps; comparing, at the trusted service, at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the first device to at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the second device; based on the comparison, determining, at the trusted service, that the first device and the second device have collected one or more matching tokens within a first timeframe; identifying, at the trusted service, users associated with the first device and the second device; and creating, at the trusted service, a group for the identified users. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. A method performed by a device, comprising:
-
receiving, at a first device, tokens from a plurality of devices, wherein the tokens do not identify a particular device or its user or owner, the tokens having corresponding timestamps; sending, from the first device, the received tokens to a trusted service; and receiving, from the trusted service, information describing a group of users associated with devices that received tokens in a first timeframe determined to be matching tokens by the trusted service, the group of users identified by the trusted service by a comparison of at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the devices. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising:
-
receiving, at a trusted service, tokens that do not identify a particular device, at least some of the tokens having been received by a first device from a first plurality of devices and at least some of the tokens having been received by a second device from a second plurality of devices the tokens having corresponding timestamps; comparing, at the trusted service, at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the first device to at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the second device; based on the comparison, determining, at the trusted service, that the first device and the second device have collected one or more matching tokens in a first timeframe; identifying, at the trusted service, users associated with the first device and the second device; and creating, at the trusted service, a group for the identified users. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
-
-
19. A computer-readable storage device having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising:
-
receiving, at a first device, tokens from a plurality of devices, wherein the tokens do not identify a particular device or its user or owner, the tokens having corresponding timestamps; sending, from the first device, the received tokens to a trusted service; and receiving, from the trusted service, information describing a group of users associated with devices that received tokens in a first timeframe determined to be matching tokens by the trusted service, the group of users identified by the trusted service by a comparison of at least some of the tokens and timestamps received by the devices. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23)
-
Specification