CN105407125B - It is automatically added to the method and system of point-to-point communication session - Google Patents

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of automatically joining a peer-to-peer communication session between a first endpoint and a second endpoint is disclosed, comprising: after the peer-to-peer communication session is established, a third party receives first identity data provided by the first endpoint, and verifying the first identity data; and if the verification is passed, the third party automatically joins the peer-to-peer communication session.

Description

Method and system for automatically joining a peer-to-peer communication session

technical field

The present invention relates generally to network communication, and in particular to point-to-point communication technology that can support real-time voice or video. The present invention further relates to the integration of third-party platforms in peer-to-peer communications, thereby providing better data protection.

Background technique

In 2009, Google launched a Google Wave service, which provides a variety of applications that can support multiple people to work together in real time. For example, "Map Gadget" and "Draw Board for Google Wave" can provide multiple people in real time on the same Editing and working on documents, but its purpose is the operation of individual users, lacking the concepts of user accounts and application permissions.

In addition, in the U.S. patent publication US20110178821 A1, Douglas Smith discloses a system for medical staff to share patient medical images through conference calls. Medical images such as audiograms), you can also initiate a conference call to other medical personnel. When other medical personnel accept the conference call, the system will download the information and send it to the computer equipment of the medical personnel.

In the U.S. patent publication US20130066974 A1, John H. Yoakum et al. disclose a method for starting an application program in a conference call, allowing users to start the application program after a multi-person conference call is established, and by sharing the desktop, let Other users can use the application through their own devices, and can support collaborative work.

Contents of the invention

The present invention first realizes that, compared with the client-server network communication architecture, the implementation cost of peer-to-peer (P2P) network communication is lower, and it can support a large number of users at the same time. At present, peer-to-peer communication services such as Skype are very popular, and its advantages are naturally self-evident. However, in peer-to-peer communication, data is directly circulated between endpoints without the control of a central server (centralized server), which increases the risk of leakage of confidential data in addition to convenience.

Taking telemedicine consultation as an example, through online conferencing such as Skype, doctors and patients can use personal communication devices (such as personal computers or mobile phones) to conduct long-distance diagnosis, and patients can provide information through the file transfer function of Skype. Medical records or other information for doctors to use as a reference for diagnostic analysis. However, medical records are important private information of patients, and all countries have strict controls on the dissemination of medical records. However, in the existing technology, the behavior of patients sending medical records to doctors (especially foreign doctors) through Skype may not be allowed by the laws of the country, and the medical records will therefore remain in the doctor's personal device, which also increases the Risk of leakage of medical records.

In view of the above-mentioned deficiencies in the prior art, embodiments of the present invention provide a trusted (trusted) third-party platform that can participate in real-time point-to-point communication. For example, patients can upload their medical records to the third-party platform (instead of sending them directly to doctors), and the third-party platform can analyze and process the medical records indirectly under the control of doctors or according to the program tools provided by doctors . At the same time, the third-party platform can automatically join the video conference, and display the analysis results on the video conference screen between the doctor and the patient through the video conference. In this way, doctors can only see the analysis results, but not directly see the patient's complete medical records, thus reducing the risk of leakage of medical records.

On the other hand, in point-to-point communication, due to the lack of a central server (centralized server), the endpoint cannot use auxiliary resources (such as a database) on the central server, but must rely on the resources of the endpoint itself. Generally speaking, the computing power or storage space of the endpoint itself is quite limited. In this regard, the present invention can be designed to allow a third-party platform with sufficient computing power or storage space to join the established point-to-point communication session, so as to provide the information or functions required by the end point for point-to-point communication, without being limited by the end point's own resources .

References in this specification to features, advantages, or similar expressions do not indicate that all features and advantages that can be achieved by the present invention should be included in any single embodiment of the present invention. Rather, it should be understood that the expressions about features and advantages mean that specific features, advantages, or characteristics described in conjunction with specific embodiments are included in at least one specific embodiment of the present invention. Therefore, the discussion of the features and advantages, and similar expressions in this specification are related to the same specific embodiment, but not necessarily.

These features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by reference to the following description and said claims, or by use of the embodiments of the invention as set forth hereinafter.

Description of drawings

For an immediate appreciation of the advantages of the invention, the invention briefly described above shall be referred to in detail by reference to specific embodiments as shown in the accompanying drawings. With the understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of the scope of the invention, the invention is illustrated with additional clarity and detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a communication system according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; and

2-4 are method flowcharts according to different embodiments of the present invention.

【Symbol Description】

communication system 100

Endpoints 120A, 120B

Third party (server) 150, 150A, 150B, 150C

Network 180

Applications AP1, AP2, AP3

Detailed ways

References to "a specific embodiment" or similar expressions in this specification mean that the specific features, structures, or characteristics described in conjunction with the specific embodiment are included in at least one specific embodiment of the present invention. Therefore, in this specification, the occurrences of "in a specific embodiment" and similar expressions do not necessarily refer to the same specific embodiment.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention can be implemented as a computer system/apparatus, a method, or a computer-readable medium as a computer program product. Therefore, the present invention can be implemented in various forms, such as a complete hardware embodiment, a complete software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, microprogram code, etc.), or can also be implemented as a software and hardware implementation form, in Hereinafter it will be referred to as a "circuit", "module" or "system". In addition, the present invention can also be implemented as a computer program product in the form of any tangible medium, which has computer usable program code stored thereon.

A combination of one or more computer-usable or readable medium(s) may be utilized. By way of example, a computer-usable or readable medium can be, but is not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, device, device, or propagation medium. More specific embodiments of computer readable media may include the following (non-limiting illustrations): electrical connection consisting of one or more connecting wires, portable computer disk, hard drive, random access memory (RAM) , read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), optical fiber, portable compact disc (CD-ROM), optical storage device, transmission medium (such as Internet (Internet) or intranet (intranet) ), or a magnetic storage device. It should be noted that the computer-usable or readable medium may be paper or any suitable medium that can be used to print the program on it so that the program can be digitized again, for example by optically scanning the paper or other medium , and then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise appropriately processed as necessary, and then can be stored in the computer memory again. In this context, a computer-usable or readable medium may be any medium for retaining, storing, transmitting, propagating or transmitting program codes for processing by an instruction execution system, device or device connected thereto. A computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal having computer-usable program code stored therein, whether in baseband or partial carrier wave form. Computer usable program code may be transmitted using any suitable medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, radio frequency (RF), and the like.

Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention can be written using one or a combination of more programming languages, including object-oriented programming languages (such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like) and conventional procedural programming languages (such as C program language or other similar programming language). The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer or partially on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer, or entirely on the remote computer, in the form of a stand-alone software package.

The following descriptions of the present invention will be described with reference to flowcharts and/or block diagrams of computer systems, methods, and computer program products according to specific embodiments of the present invention. As can be understood, each block in each flowchart and/or block diagrams, and any combination of blocks in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams, can be implemented using computer program instructions. These computer program instructions can be executed by a machine composed of a processor of a general-purpose computer or a special-purpose computer or other programmable data processing devices, and the instructions are processed by the computer or other programmable data processing devices so as to implement the flowchart and/or block diagram function or operation described.

These computer program instructions can also be stored on computer-readable media to instruct computers or other programmable data processing devices to perform specific functions, and these instructions stored on computer-readable media constitute a product, in which Included instructions may implement the functions or operations illustrated in the flowchart and/or block diagrams.

Computer program instructions can also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing device, so as to perform a system operation step on the computer or other programmable device, and when the instruction is executed on the computer or other programmable device, a computer-implemented programs to achieve the functions or operations described in the flowcharts and/or block diagrams.

Next, please refer to FIG. 1 to FIG. 4 , which show flowcharts and block diagrams of architecture, functions and operations that can be implemented by systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. Accordingly, each block in the flowchart or block diagram may represent a module, section, or portion of program code, which includes one or more executable instructions to implement the specified logical functions. It should also be noted that in some other implementations, the functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, blocks that are connected in two diagrams can actually be executed together, or in some cases can also be executed in the reverse order of the diagrams according to the functions involved. Also note that each block diagram and/or flowchart block, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by a system based on special purpose hardware, or by a combination of special purpose hardware and a computer A combination of instructions to perform a specific function or operation.

<system architecture>

FIG. 1 shows a communication system 100 in one embodiment. The system 100 includes at least two endpoints 120A and 120B (such as personal computers, notebook computers, or mobile electronic devices). Although not shown in the figure, it should be understood that the system 100 may include more endpoints or other network components. The endpoints 120A and 120B are connected by a network 180, which can be any type of network, such as the Internet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), virtual private network (VPN), public switched telephone network (PSTN) or combinations of the above, etc. Through the network 180, the peer-to-peer (P2P) communication between the endpoints 120A and 120B can be referred to as the Skype video or voice conference in the prior art. In another embodiment, the peer-to-peer communication between the endpoints 120A and 120B may be based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The above parts should be well known to those skilled in the art, and will not be repeated here.

In particular, communication system 100 includes third party 150 in addition to endpoints 120A and 120B. It should be noted that, in this article, the third party 150 does not necessarily refer to a specific server or network component. In contrast, the third party 150 can be a general term for a collection of network components that can be used to implement the method flow described in FIGS. 180 links to a third party 150 . Those skilled in the art should be able to understand the third party 150 as a "cloud service" that can provide one or more application programs AP1, AP2, ..., and in the example shown in Figure 1, the third party 150 can use multiple servers 150A, 150B, . Organizations are managed separately. In a specific embodiment, the basic structure and components of the multiple servers 150A, 150B, .

The present invention will be further described through several simplified examples below, but those skilled in the art should know that the present invention is not limited thereto.

<First embodiment>

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, which is a computer-implemented method performed in conjunction with the communication system 100 shown in FIG. 1 .

Step 200: First, endpoints 120A and 120B conduct peer-to-peer (P2P) communication. The meaning of the so-called "point-to-point communication" in this article is that once the communication session (session) between the endpoints 120A and 120B is established (established), the subsequent communication between the endpoints 120A and 120B through this session does not require a specific central server (centralized server) intervention. For this, reference may be made to Skype or P2P-SIP communication in the prior art. It should also be noted that although the communication between the endpoints 120A and 120B is taken as an example above, it should be known that the peer-to-peer communication in step 200 may actually involve other endpoints (not shown). It should also be noted that in this step 200, the third party 150 has not yet established any connection with the endpoints 120A and 120B.

Step 202: The endpoint 120A can connect to the third party 150 through a predetermined communication protocol (such as HTTPS) or a dedicated communication protocol, and the third party 150 verifies the endpoint 120A. Preferably, the communication protocol can encrypt the transmitted data, so that the endpoint 120A can upload the user profile (user profile) to the third party 150, and the third party 150 according to the received user profile of the endpoint 120A The profile is verified and corresponding actions may be taken according to the content of the user profile of the endpoint 120A.

In another embodiment, in this step 202, the endpoint 120A can notify the endpoint 120B (for example, through the above-mentioned peer-to-peer communication session), requiring the endpoint 120B to also connect to the third party 150, so that the third party 150 is also responsible for the user of the endpoint 120B. The profile is verified, and corresponding actions can be taken according to the content of the user profile of the endpoint 120B. In other words, in different embodiments of the present invention, it may be enough to verify only one endpoint (such as endpoint 120A) in the point-to-point communication in step 200, but it may also be designed to require two (such as endpoint 120A and endpoint 120B) )) or two or more endpoints (not shown) for verification.

It should also be noted that in step 202 , the third party 150 is only connected to endpoint 120A and/or endpoint 120B respectively, but has not joined the session established between endpoints 120A and 120B in step 200 .

Step 204: If the verification in step 202 is passed, the third party 150 replies to the endpoint 120A and/or 120B respectively, notifying that the verification is passed, and prompting available application programs AP1, AP2, ... for the user of the endpoint 120A and/or 120B to select . In one embodiment, the third party 150 further determines the available applications according to the user profiles of the endpoints 120A and/or 120B. In other words, the available applications AP1, AP2, . . . Permissions vary. After the user of the endpoint 120A and/or 120B selects the application program AP1, the third party 150 activates the application program AP1 on the server 150A according to the request sent by the endpoint 120A and/or 120B and executes it to generate output. The output of the application program API of the server 150A can be predetermined information, such as a piece of text, an image, a piece of audio, a piece of video, or a multimedia file, which is not intended to be limited by the present invention.

Step 206: The third party 150 uses the server 150A to automatically join the peer-to-peer communication session between the endpoints 120A and 120B, and transmits the output of the application program AP1 (such as predetermined information) to the endpoints 120A and 120B through the session. The present invention does not limit the method for the third party 150 to join the point-to-point communication session between the endpoints 120A and 120B, for example, refer to Section 5.2-"Adding Participants" in RFC4353 and RFC 4579. Preferably, while receiving the information sent by the application program AP1 through the session, the endpoints 120A and 120B can continue to communicate in real time through the session (for example, conduct a video conference).

In a specific application, the above embodiment shown in FIG. 2 can be applied to an imaginary situation, wherein the application program AP1 of the third party 150 is used to output, for example, paid value-added content (value-added content) to the communication of the endpoints 120A and 120B In a session (such as a video conference). Therefore, in step 202, the third party 150 must first verify the endpoint 120A and/or the endpoint 120B to confirm whether it has the authority to receive value-added content. If the verification is passed, the value-added content output by the application program AP1 will be simultaneously displayed on the video conference screens of the endpoints 120A and 120B, and the endpoints 120A and 120B can continue to view the value-added content (such as TV programs) through the video conference. )have a discussion.

In addition, because the value-added content is pre-stored in the third party 150 as a cloud service, rather than in the endpoints 120A and 120B, it facilitates the management and expansion of the value-added content. Especially when the value-added content involves confidentiality or copyright authorization restrictions, and does not allow the value-added content to be permanently (permanently) stored in the endpoints 120A and 120B, it can be designed when the value-added content is output from the application program AP1 of the third party 150 to After the communication session between the endpoints 120A and 120B, the endpoints 120A and 120B can only read or watch the value-added content, but cannot permanently store it locally in the endpoints 120A and 120B. When the session ends, the endpoints 120A and 120B cannot read or watch the value-added content, so as to meet the requirements of confidentiality or copyright authorization.

<Second Embodiment>

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, which is a computer-implemented method performed in conjunction with the communication system 100 shown in FIG. 1 .

Step 300: First, the endpoints 120A and 120B conduct peer-to-peer communication. Reference may be made to step 200 in FIG. 2 .

Step 302: The third party 150 verifies the endpoint 120A and/or 120B, refer to step 202 in FIG. 2 .

Step 304: If the verification in step 302 passes, the third party 150 starts an application program (such as the application program AP2 on the server 150B) according to the selection and request of the endpoints 120A and/or 120B. For this part, refer to step 204 in FIG. 2 . The difference is that in this step, after the application program AP2 is started, the endpoints 120A and/or 120B can further upload the application program data required by the application program AP2 to the server 150B. In particular, the present invention may include the situation that only the endpoint 120A uploads the application data, only the endpoint 120B uploads the application data, or both the endpoint 120A and the endpoint 120B upload the application data.

Preferably, the endpoint 120A and the endpoint 120B upload the application program data to the server 150B of the third party 150 through the connection established with the third party 150 during verification in step 302 . In other words, at this time, the server 150B of the third party 150 is only connected to the endpoint 120A and/or the endpoint 120B respectively, but has not joined the session established between the endpoints 120A and 120B in step 300, so the application uploaded by the endpoint 120A The content of the program data is not known to the endpoint 120B, and vice versa. The above design is advantageous when application data is confidential.

Step 305: After obtaining the application program data uploaded by the endpoint 120A and/or the endpoint 120B, the application program AP2 can process the application program data and output a processing result. In one embodiment, the application program data provided by the endpoint 120A is the program code of the data analysis function (or tool), while the application program data provided by the endpoint 120B is sample data, so the application program AP2 can use the program code from the endpoint The data analysis function of 120A analyzes the sample data from the endpoint 120B, generates processing results and outputs them.

Step 306: The third party 150 automatically joins the peer-to-peer communication session between the endpoints 120A and 120B with the server 150B, and transmits the output of the application program AP2 to the endpoints 120A and 120B through the session. Reference may be made to step 206 in FIG. 2 .

In a specific application, the above embodiment shown in FIG. 3 can be applied to an imaginary situation as follows, wherein the terminal 120A is a financial consultant or a health consultant, and the terminal 120B is a customer, and both parties can use the established in step 300 Point-to-point communication holds video conferencing for remote consultation. In the consulting process, the consultant may need to analyze some sample data of the client, and provide appropriate suggestions based on the analysis results. However, due to confidentiality or national regulations, customer sample data (such as tax returns or medical records) cannot be directly provided to consultants, so the third party 150 can be used as a trusted intermediary platform and obtained from endpoint 120A (consultant) The data analysis function is to obtain sample data from the endpoint 120B (customer), and the application program AP2 performs calculation and analysis. Since the third party 150 can join the video conference session, the analysis result of the application program AP2 can be simultaneously displayed on the video conference screens of the endpoints 120A and 120B in a video stream. This can not only meet the needs of consultants who need to analyze the results during the remote consultation process, but more importantly, through the above method, the endpoint 120A (consultant) can only see the analysis results, but cannot directly see the original sample data, so it can Meet confidentiality or regulatory requirements.

<Variation Example>

FIG. 4 further illustrates another variation of the embodiment in FIG. 3 after step 305 .

Step 316: The third party 150 starts another application program (such as the application program AP3 on the server 150C) according to the selection and request of the endpoint 120A and/or 120B. In one embodiment, the server 150B in the third party 150 executes the application program AP2 and the server 150C executes the application program AP3. communicate with each other through the network 180 or a dedicated network (not shown). In addition, it should be noted that although the application program AP2 (server 150B) and application program AP3 (server 150C) mentioned in this article belong to the third party 150, it should be known that the so-called "third party" in this article only refers to the endpoint 120A. As far as 120B is concerned, in practice, the application program AP2 (server 150B) and the application program AP3 (server 150C) can be provided by different business operation organizations, not limited to the same business operation organization.

Step 318: The application program AP2 (server 150B) outputs the processing result obtained by processing the application program data provided by the endpoint 120A and/or 120B (see step 305 in FIG. 3 ) to the application program AP3 (server 150C). In this way, the application program AP3 can be further processed to obtain another processing result.

In one embodiment, the application program AP2 (server 150B) outputs the processing result to the application program AP3 (server 150C) through video streaming, and wherein, in addition to the video frame (video frame), optionally, the application program AP2 can also provide related metadata (metadata) to the application program AP3 and connection data (such as network IP addresses of the endpoints 120A and 120B) to assist the application program AP3 to communicate with the endpoints 120A and 120B. The application program AP3 also outputs its processing results in the form of video streams according to the data provided by the application program AP2.

Step 320: The third party 150 automatically joins the peer-to-peer communication session between the endpoints 120A and 120B with the server 150C, and transmits the output of the application program AP3 to the endpoints 120A and 120B through the session. Reference may be made to step 206 in FIG. 2 .

The embodiment shown in FIG. 4 can be applied to the imagined remote consultation situation mentioned above. During the consultation process, the consultant and the client first watch and discuss the analysis results of the client’s medical records by the application program AP2 on the video conference screen (as described in Figure 3 above), and if the consultant and the client are not satisfied with the analysis results of the application program AP2, Then the application program AP2 can be required to output the analysis results to the application program AP3 for further analysis (such as comparing with the medical records of the client’s family members), and then the output of the application program AP3 can be displayed as a video stream to display the video conference screen . In this way, the consultant can only see the comparison results of the medical records provided by the application program AP3, but cannot directly see the medical records of the client's family members, so the confidentiality or regulatory requirements can be met. In addition, the advantage of this method is that the resources that consultants and clients can use during the point-to-point video conference can be technically expanded without limit, and will not be limited by their own terminal devices.

The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics of the inventions. The aspects of the specific embodiments should be considered as illustrative only and not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes that fall within the equivalent meaning and range of the claims should be regarded as falling within the scope of the claims.

Claims (10)

1. a kind of the method implemented by computer for the point-to-point communication session being automatically added between first end point and the second endpoint, packet Contain：

(a) after the point-to-point communication session establishment, third party receives the first identity data that the first end point is provided, and First identity data is verified；And

If (b) being verified in step (a), which is automatically added to the point-to-point communication session,

Wherein the third party has application program, and step (b) also includes：If being verified in step (a), which rings The application program should be started in the request transmitted by the first end point and/or second endpoint, the third party to generate output, and The output is transmitted to the first end point and second endpoint with the point-to-point communication session.

2. the method as described in claim 1, wherein step (a) also include：

The third party receives the second identity data that second endpoint is provided, and is verified to second identity data.

3. the method as described in claim 1, wherein step (b) also include：

If being verified in step (a), which further receives what the first end point was provided First application data and/or receive that second endpoint provided second apply data, and according to the first application data and/or The second application data are handled and generate handling result, and transmit the handling result to this by the point-to-point communication session First end point and second endpoint.

4. method as claimed in claim 3, wherein one of the first application data and the second application data are to include About the program code of data analysis function, thereby the application program can be used the data analysis function to this first apply data And this second application data in another analyzed and generate the handling result.

5. method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the point-to-point communication session is videoconference session, and this it is third-party should Application program sends the first end point to further by the handling result in a manner of video streaming, by the videoconference session And second endpoint.

6. the method as described in claim 1, the wherein third party have the first application program and the second application program, wherein walking Suddenly (b) also includes：

If being verified in step (a), which further receives the first application that the first end point is provided Data and/or receive that second endpoint provided second apply data, and according to the first application data and/or this second answer Handled with data and generate the first handling result, and transmitted first handling result and give second application program, and this Two application programs are further processed according to first handling result and generate second processing as a result, and by the point-to-point communication meeting Words transmit the second processing result to the first end point and second endpoint.

7. method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the point-to-point communication session is videoconference session, and this first applies journey Sequence sends first handling result to second application program in a manner of video streaming, and second application program also should Second processing result sends the first end point and second endpoint in a manner of video streaming by the videoconference session.

8. method as claimed in claim 6, wherein first application program and second application program be installed on it is different hard On part device, and pass through network connection.

9. method as claimed in claim 6, wherein one of the first application data and the second application data are to include The program code of data analysis function, thereby first application program can be used the data analysis function to this first apply data And this second application data in another analyzed and generate first handling result.

10. a kind of computer-implemented system for the point-to-point communication session being automatically added between first end point and the second endpoint, packet Include to implement the device of method according to any one of claims 1 to 9.