Anonymous voice conversation

• US 9,479,344 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2012
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems Inc (Comtech Telecommunications Corporation)
• Original Assignee: TeleCommunication Systems Inc (Comtech Telecommunications Corporation)
• Inventors: McFarland, Keith, Jain, Vishal
• Primary Examiner(s): Chu, Wutchung
• Application Number:
  US13/610,192
• Publication Number:
  US 20130070650A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,505 Days
• Field of Search: 379/301.11, 379/142.02, 379/142.04, 379/207.02, 370/259, 370/392, 370/393, 370/395.3, 709/206, 709/224, 709/228
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2539 Hiding addresses; Keeping addresses anonymous
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0407 wherein the identity of one or more communicating identities is hidden cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for anonymous credentials or for identity based cryptographic systems H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/571 Blocking transmission of caller identification to called party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42008 Systems for anonymous communication between parties, e.g. by use of disposal contact identifiers

Abstract

An anonymous communication module that provides full conversational anonymous messaging and voice/video communication between two or more parties interacting over a wireless/landline network. An anonymous messaging module accepts an anonymous initiation message to a public address to trigger the start of an anonymous voice/video conversation between a message originator and a message recipient. An anonymous communication module performs intercept and address substitution on a message and/or voice/video call transmitted between two or more parties via an anonymous communication service. The anonymous communication module substitutes a real address in the source field of an intercepted message and/or voice/video call, with an anonymous address mapped to that real address, and substitutes an anonymous address in the destination field of an intercepted message and/or voice/video call with a real address mapped to that anonymous address. The anonymous communication module then forwards the newly formatted message and/or voice/video call to an intended message/call destination.

Claims

1. A method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices, comprising:

intercepting a specifically addressed voice communication packet transmitted from an unregistered first digital voice communication device to an anonymous address of at least one registered destination digital voice communication device, said intercepted digital voice communication packet being specifically addressed to said anonymous address of said at least one registered destination digital voice communication device;

substituting for a real source address of said unregistered first digital voice communication device associated with said digital voice communication packet with an anonymous source address, in said intercepted digital communication packet; and

forwarding said intercepted digital voice communication packet to said intended registered destination.

2. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, further comprising:

querying an internal address mapping database to affiliate said anonymous address of said at least one registered destination digital voice communication device, with an actual destination destination address of said at least one registered destination digital voice communication device; and

querying said internal address mapping database to affiliate said real source address of said unregistered first digital voice communication device with said anonymous source address.

3. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said real source address comprises:

a mobile directory number.

4. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said real source address comprises:

an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

5. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said digital voice communication packet comprises:

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

6. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said digital voice communication packet comprises:

video.

7. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said digital voice communication packet comprises:

a short message.

8. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said digital voice communication packet comprises:

a multimedia message (MMS).

9. The method of providing full conversational anonymous voice communication between two or more digital voice communication devices according to claim 1, wherein said digital voice communication packet comprises:

an instant message (IM).