Patent ID: 7689682

Claim:
A method of using peer-to-peer communication to obtain lists of nodes of a decentralized multi-dimensional personal information network, the method comprising: selecting, by a first user computing device operating as a first personal information aggregator, one or more second personal information aggregators from a first set of personal information aggregators, wherein each second personal information aggregator in the first set of personal information aggregators corresponds to a node of the multi-dimensional personal information network that has a degree of separation of one from a first node; retrieving, by the first user computing device, a first network address list comprising a network address corresponding to each of the one or more second personal information aggregators; establishing, by the first user computing device, a peer-to-peer network connection with each of the one or more second personal information aggregators based on the first network address list; requesting, by the first user computing device, one or more second network address lists comprising network addresses of additional personal information aggregators, wherein each of the additional personal information aggregators corresponds to a node that has a degree of separation of one with at least one node corresponding to at least one of the second personal information aggregators in the first set of personal information aggregators; receiving, by the first user computing device, the one or more second network address lists; and storing, by the first user computing device, the one or more second network address lists at the first user computing device.