Patent ID: 9537943
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method comprising: receiving, at a communication element of a recipient node, an access ticket originating from an originating node, the access ticket for accessing content via a network and providing an identifier of the content, wherein the access ticket includes at least a public key; determining, at an updating element of the recipient node, a true degree of separation between the recipient node and the originating node based on a comparison of a current delivery route of the access ticket and a social diagram stored in memory device of the recipient node that reflects degrees of separation between the recipient node and other nodes based on past delivery routes of the recipient node, a true degree of separation being a smallest degree of separation between two nodes; when the current delivery route indicates an intermediate node between the recipient node and the originating node, determining, at the updating element, a true degree of separation between the recipient node and the intermediate node based on the comparison of the current delivery route of the access ticket and the stored social diagram, wherein each of the originating node, the recipient node, and the intermediate node comprises a peer node in a peer-to-peer network; and determining, by an access control element of the recipient node, to access the content via the network when the true degree of separation between the recipient node and the originating node is less than a predetermined threshold.