Whatsapp Inc.

Google Inc.

Ehren Andrew Kret

Michael B Donohue

Brian Lange Acton

Jan Boris Koum

Randall Sarafa

Eugene Fooksman

Jamshid Mahdavi

Manpreet Singh

Charles Donald Deets, Jr

Erik James Reed

Anton Borzov

Ronald Ho

Bryan Dennis O'Connor

Claudiu Dan Gheorghe

George Nachman

Chun Wing Yuen

Derek Alan Konigsberg

Alan Kao

Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for transmitting ephemeral content messages. A sending client may establish an end-to-end encrypted session with possible recipients of the message, using a first decryption key during initial session setup. The client may send an ephemeral content message, including encrypted content and a second key, to the recipients through a server. The server may be unable to retrieve the encrypted content due to a lack of the second key. The server may filter a list of intended recipients, and may forward the ephemeral content message to the recipients on the filtered list. The recipients may retrieve the second key from the message, and use the first and second keys to decrypt the encrypted content. The sending client may change the second key each time the recipient list changes from the perspective of the sending client, as determined at the time the ephemeral content message is transmitted.

Methods and systems for processing an ephemeral content message

Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for anonymizing information in an end-to-end (E2E) encrypted environment; the information may include, for example, statistical data about unique page/message views, view counts, view time, what users selected on the message or page, etc. Exemplary embodiments may prevent an E2E system server from being able to identify which user is associated with which record. Various examples are described, including an embodiment in which an originating client generates the data, encrypts it, and sends it to a random contact. The contact decrypts the data, re-encrypts it, and sends it to another random contact. The procedure continues for a set amount of time or for a set number of hops. Other embodiments relate to wrapping the data in various layers of encryption and sending the data to clients in a chain. The encrypted layers prevent clients along the chain from being able to view the anonymized data.

Methods and systems for transmitting anonymized information

Methods and systems for processing an ephemeral con tent message

Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for sending ephemeral content messages via a communications service. An interface may be presented to allow a user to initially access ephemeral content functionality and select content for inclusion in the ephemeral content message. The interface may present a streamlined set of use cases without regard to the manner in which the content was initially captured. Different types of content may be used as ephemeral content, including images, videos, weather reports, news stories, text, audio recordings, location tags, etc. The ephemeral content may be sent through the communications service as an end-to-end encrypted message. When a user replies to an ephemeral content message, the reply may trigger a one-to-one conversation between the originating user and the replying user. Alternatively, an ephemeral content message may be initially sent to a selected group, and replies may be sent back to the entire group.

Methods and systems for generating an ephemeral content message

Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for anonymizing information in an end-to-end (E2E) encrypted environment; the information may include, for example, statistical data about unique page/message views, view counts, view time, what users selected on the message or page, etc. Exemplary embodiments may prevent an E2E system server from being able to identify which user is associated with which record. Various examples are described, including an embodiment in which an originating client generates the data, encrypts it, and sends it to a random contact. The contact decrypts the data, re-encyrpts it, and sends it to another random contact. The procedure continues for a set amount of time or for a set number of hops. Other embodiments relate to wrapping the data in various layers of encryption and sending the data to clients in a chain. The encrypted layers prevent clients along the chain from being able to view the anonymized data.

Techniques for media endpoint configuration are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a messaging server component operative to receive a media message addressed to a recipient user account, the media message comprising a media identifier for a media item; and send the media message to a recipient client device associated with the recipient user account; and a media management component operative to send a media endpoint list to a recipient client device, the media endpoint list operative to configure the recipient client device to retrieve the media item by identifying the media item with the media identifier to a media endpoint determined based on the media endpoint list. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques for media endpoint configuration

Techniques to perform the dynamic configuration of load-balanced relay operations are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a first load balancer component, a second load balancer component, a first relay server component, a second relay server component, and a persistent shared-memory storage component. The apparatus may be operative to perform the dynamic configuration of load-balanced relay operations for a two-tier relay system using persistent shared-memory storage in which a session identifier received from client devices is used to coordinate the activities of the relay server components based on information shared via the persistent shared-memory storage component. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques to perform the dynamic configuration of load-balanced relay operations

A messaging system establishes a secure call session between multiple parties. The call session is secured using an entropy value shared among parties in the call session. During the call session, the messaging system receives an instruction from a party in the call session to modify the call session. The call session may be modified by a party being added or removed from the session. Based on the received instruction, the messaging system performs an entropy value update to ensure that the call session is secure after the modification is made. A new entropy value is generated by a party in the call session and transmitted to other parties in the call session. Using the new entropy value, the messaging system establishes the modified secure call session.

Encrypting multiple party calls

A system and methods are provided for conveying connection-oriented communications (e.g., textual messages among multiple users) via a protocol such as HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). When a device operating a communication application that features a custom application layer protocol for formatting messages for transmission cannot connect to the system hosting the application using a default protocol stack that include the custom application layer protocol, it instead connects using HTTP's chunked mode of transfer encoding. Each outgoing communication is encapsulated in a separate HTTP chunk, and communications to multiple different users may be conveyed via the one connection. Incoming communications (e.g., from the multiple users) are received as separate chunks and are unwrapped or de-encapsulated to retrieve the communication for presentation to a user.

Conveying instant messages via HTTP

Exemplary embodiments relate to techniques for displaying and interacting with ephemeral content messages in a communication service. Ephemeral content, transmitted as a message in order to preserve end-to-end encryption, may be tagged with an identifier designating the message as an ephemeral content message. A receiving client may recognize the flag and display the content of the message as ephemeral content. The update may include a link to the content that expires under certain conditions. While the link is active, the link may be selected to enter a full-screen presentation of the ephemeral content. Different media types may be associated with different types of full-screen presentations. Displayed ephemeral content from different users may be ranked based on an interest score and displayed in the ranked order. Ephemeral content may be displayed in a user interface on separate tabs.

Methods and systems for displaying an ephemeral content message

Techniques for key ratcheting with multiple step sizes are described. For example, an apparatus may be configured to receive two or more encrypted messages, where the encrypted messages are encrypted according to a multi-dimensional ratcheting encryption scheme. Moreover, the apparatus may be configured to determine which of the encrypted messages was most-recently received and extract a message iteration count from the most-recent encrypted message, generate a decrypted message by decrypting the encrypted message based on a decryption key, decompose the message iteration count into a plurality of message chain key iteration counts, and determine the decryption key based on the plurality of message chain key iteration counts.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Ehren Andrew Kret