Identifying peers by their interpersonal relationships

• US 8,726,036 B2
• Filed: 09/20/2011
• Issued: 05/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wallrust, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Wallrust, Inc.
• Inventors: Patvarczki, Jozsef, Anka, Marton B., Tamas, Endre, Kornafeld, Adam
• Primary Examiner(s): Brown, Christopher
• Assistant Examiner(s): JACKSON, JENISE E
• Application Number:
  US13/236,675
• Publication Number:
  US 20130073865A1
• Time in Patent Office: 966 Days
• Field of Search: 713/189, 713/161, 726/26, 726/2, 380/277
• US Class Current: 713/189
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0853 using an additional device, e.g. smartcard, SIM or a different communication terminal cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving additional secure or trusted devices H04L9/3234
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0876 based on the identity of the terminal or configuration, e.g. MAC address, hardware or software configuration or device fingerprint
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3231 Biological data, e.g. fingerprint, voice or retina network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using biometrical features in a packet data network H04L63/0861

Abstract

According to this disclosure, a user is identified (and selectively granted access to protected resources) by using information that describes the user'"'"'s interpersonal relationships. This information typically is stored in a datastore, such as a digital address book, an online profile page, or the like. The user'"'"'s digital address book carries an “acquaintance pattern” that changes dynamically in time. This pattern comprises the information in the user'"'"'s contact list entries. In this approach, the entropy inherent in this information is distilled into a unique acquaintance digest (or “fingerprint”) by normalizing the contact list data, and then applying a cryptographic function to the result.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer readable program of computer instructions, wherein the computer readable program when executed by a processor causes the processor to carry out the following operations:

scanning a contact list to identify one or more contact list entries;

applying a cryptographic function to each identified contact entry to generate a contact entry digest for the contact entry by the following sub-steps;

identifying one or more fields associated with a contact entry and, for a given field, applying the cryptographic function to a value in the given field or a null value if the given field does not include the value, wherein the value is derived by concatenating string representations of one of;

first name, last name, telephone number, and e-mail address, into an intermediate data string and summing integer values of characters in the intermediate data string;

ordering into a data string the contact entry digests;

applying the cryptographic function to the data string to generate a fingerprint associated with the contact list; and

using the fingerprint to obtain access to a protected resource.

2. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the given field is one of:

first name, last name, telephone number, and e-mail address.

3. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the cryptographic hash function is one of:

MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA- 384and SHA-512.

4. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 further including generating a new fingerprint upon a given occurrence.

5. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 4 wherein the given occurrence is a passage of time, and an update to a contact list entry.

6. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the contact list is an address book associated with a personal information manager (PIM).

7. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the contact list is a virtual address book associated with a set of profile pages located on a social network.

8. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the protected resource is one of:

a product, a service, a machine, a group of machines, a device, an application, a program, a process, an execution thread, a file, an object, a data set, given data, and a resource.

9. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the using step compares the fingerprint to one or more other known good values of the fingerprint.

10. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 further including, as a sub-step, applying a character encoding to information in the given field.

11. The computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the using step also provides another identifier with the fingerprint.

12. The apparatus computer-readable storage medium as described in claim 1 wherein the contact list is a virtual address book associated with a set of profile pages located on a social network.