Token-Based Access Control for Social Network Privacy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current social networking systems (SNS) do not allow for the reuse of friend relationships and groups for access control across different platforms, leading to privacy concerns and the need for users to redefine relationships when joining new SNS, which compromises user privacy and increases maintenance efforts.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize owner and requester tokens, encoded with access control policies and identities, to grant access to resources based on social networking data, ensuring privacy by maintaining identity determination within the social networking system and preventing external systems from learning user relationships.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional access control solutions are used where external systems query social networking systems to determine user relationships, then access control functionality is achieved, but user privacy is compromised because the external system learns all Facebook friends of the user
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism where the social networking system acts as a trusted mediator that evaluates access control policies without revealing user relationship data to external systems. The external system sends access requests with tokens, and the SNS internally evaluates whether the requester satisfies the policy conditions based on their relationship to the resource owner, returning only a binary authorization result without exposing the actual friend lists or relationship structures.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the sensitive relationship evaluation logic from the external system and relocates it entirely within the social networking system. The external system no longer needs to query or learn about user relationships; instead, the SNS internally extracts and evaluates the relevant relationship information against the access policy, keeping all relationship data confined within the SNS boundaries.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users maintain relationships in multiple social networking systems to avoid lock-in effects, then adaptability is improved, but the time and effort required to manage and redefine relationships increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables a single set of relationships defined in one social networking system to serve multiple functions across different platforms. By allowing external systems to leverage the SNS's relationship data through token-based access control, users can maintain relationships in one SNS and have those relationships universally recognized for access control purposes across multiple external systems, eliminating the need to recreate relationships in each platform.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs relationship evaluation in advance by having the social networking system pre-process and internally evaluate access policies when tokens are presented. The relationship verification and policy evaluation are performed preliminarily by the SNS before any data exchange occurs, so when users join new systems, the relationship validation has already been established through the token mechanism, reducing the need for redefinition.
3Measurement precision
If identity disclosure is required for access control verification, then access control accuracy is improved, but user privacy is further compromised as identities must be made known to external systems
Solution Approach 1:
The social networking system serves as an intermediary that performs identity verification without requiring the external system to know user identities. The external system includes identity information in tokens, and the SNS internally verifies identities against the access policy, returning authorization decisions without the external system ever learning the actual identities being verified.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses token copies that contain encoded identity information without requiring the original identity data to be exposed. The tokens serve as cryptographic copies or representations of identity that can be verified by the SNS without revealing the underlying identity information to the external system, maintaining verification accuracy while protecting identity privacy.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling access to a resource of an owner of the resource is provided. The owner can be a user of a resource computer system. The access control can be based on social network data of a social network system and/or on an owner token relating to the owner or a requester token relating to a requester requesting access to the resource and an access control policy. The owner token and the requester token can be received by the system to determine by the social networking system whether access to the resource is to be granted based on the content of the owner token and the requester token. A social network identity of the owner and a social network identity of the requester may only be determinable by the social network system.