SECURELY RECOGNIZING MOBILE DEVICES

Number: 20180324152
Published: 2018-11-08
Filed: 2017-05-02
Assignee: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Inventors: JARCHAFJIAN; Harout et al.
CPC: H04W12/63; G06F21/44; H04L63/126; H04L63/0428; H04W12/30; H04W4/023; H04W12/08
Verdict: Set aside mobile device authentication/security
Source: Google Patents · FreePatentsOnline

Abstract

Systems, methods and articles of manufacture to perform an operation comprising receiving, from one of a plurality of stations, a message which includes at least a random number and a first hash value of the random number concatenated with a first key, comparing the first hash value to one or more second hash values, wherein each second hash value is generated by hashing the random number concatenated with one of a plurality of second keys and wherein each second key corresponds to a registered device of a device identification system, upon determining the first hash value matches one of the second hash values, determining an identity of the mobile device based on the corresponding second key, and based on the location of the station which sent the message, assigning a location to the mobile device.

Background

BACKGROUNDField of the Invention

Embodiments presented herein generally relate to techniques for permission-based recognition of a mobile device while protecting an identity of a user of the mobile device. More specifically, embodiments presented herein relate to techniques that allow a mobile device to be recognized by a trusted third-party while preventing a non-trusted third-party from recognizing the mobile device.Description of the Related Art

A variety of technologies can be used to recognize a mobile device using signals emitted from the device. The signals contain data such as a user ID, device ID and/or address that can be used to recognize the device. However, these technologies allow a non-trusted third-party to also recognize the device if the non-trusted third party can receive and understand the transmitted data. For example, a mobile application may use a static encryption key that is common across all instances of the mobile application to encrypt a transmitted device ID. In that case, the device ID of each mobile device with the application is encrypted using the same encryption key. While this technique may initially be secure, a non-trusted third-party could decompile the application to determine the encryption key. The third-party could then use the encryption key to decrypt any device ID related to that mobile application and recognize the mobile device or a user of the mobile device even though third-party recognition was not intended by the

Claims

1. A method of recognizing a mobile device, comprising: receiving, from one of a plurality of stations, a message which includes at least a random number and a first hash value of the random number concatenated with a first key; comparing the first hash value to one or more second hash values, wherein each second hash value is generated by hashing the random number concatenated with one of a plurality of second keys and wherein each second key corresponds to a registered device; upon determining the first hash value matches one of the second hash values, recognizing the mobile device based on the corresponding second key; and based on the location of the station which sent the message, assigning a location to the registered mobile device. 8. A computer program product for recognizing a mobile device, the computer program product comprising: a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith, the computer-readable program code executable by a processor to perform an operation comprising: receiving, from one of a plurality of stations, a message which includes at least a random number and a first hash value of the random number concatenated with a first key; comparing the first hash value to one or more second hash values, wherein each second hash value is generated by hashing the random number concatenated with one of a plurality of second keys and wherein each second key corresponds to a registered device; upon determining the first hash value matches one of the second hash values, recognizing the mobile device based on the corresponding second key; and based on the location of the station which sent the message, assigning a location to the registered mobile device. 15. A system, comprising: one or more processors; and a memory hosting a program, which, when executed by the processors, performs an operation to recognize a mobile device, the operation comprising: receiving, from one of a plurality of stations, a message which includes at least a random number and a first hash value of the random number concatenated with a first key; comparing the first hash value to one or more second hash values, wherein each second hash value is generated by hashing the random number concatenated with one of a plurality of second keys and wherein each second key corresponds to a registered device; upon determining the first hash value matches one of the second hash values, recognizing the mobile device based on the corresponding second key; and based on the location of the station which sent the message, assigning a location to the registered mobile device.