Patent ID: 8880608

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by one or more processors, a graph representing public social data comprising identity data and social link data, the graph comprising nodes and edges, each node representing an identity provided from the public social data, each edge representing a social link between identities and having an edge type and a weight associated therewith, a first edge type being a social link that connects identities associated with the same entity, and a second edge type being a social link that connects identities associated with differing entities; determining, by the one or more processors, for a first node and a second node in a pair of nodes: a first distance as a smallest number of edges of the first edge type and the second edge type on any path from the first node to the second node; a second distance as a smallest number of edges of the second edge type on any path from the first node to the second node; a score based on weights of edges along a path from the first node to the second node; an affinity between the first node and the second node based on the first distance, the second distance, and the score; and determining, by the one or more processors, an aggregated affinity between a source node and a target node, the aggregated affinity being determined based on the affinities of a plurality of pairs of nodes along all possible paths from the source node to the target node.