US 8,620,315 B1Granted

Multi-tiered anti-abuse registration for a mobile device user

AssigneeYahoo! Inc.

InventorsArthur Merritt, Zhaowei Charlie Jiang, James Liang

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Abstract

Various embodiments are directed to providing a multi-tiered anti-abuse approach to registration of a mobile device user. A registration service may determine whether communications with the mobile device is through a trusted carrier gateway, and if so, then a mobile device identifier may be used to automatically register the mobile device. Otherwise, a determination may be made whether the mobile device is configured to support a challenge-response image. In one embodiment, such determination may be based, in part, on information received from the mobile device through a user agent, or the like. If the mobile device is capable of supporting a challenge-response image, one may be sent to the mobile device to enable registration. If, however, the mobile device does not support the challenge-response image and the carrier gateway is not trusted, the mobile device may be directed to employ an SMS mechanism to complete registration.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving, at a computing device over a network, a request for registration from a mobile device;
determining, via the computing device, that a carrier gateway associated with the mobile device is trustable, said trustable determination comprising receiving information corresponding to a mobile device identifier from the carrier gateway, said information comprising at least one item of information chosen from a group of information items consisting of a Mobile Identification Number, an Electronic Serial Number, and an application serial number;
automatically registering, via the computing device, the mobile device based on the mobile device identifier when the carrier gateway associated with the mobile device is determined trustable;
facilitating registration, via the computing device, of the mobile device based on the determination that the carrier gateway is untrustable and a determination that the mobile device supports a display of a challenge-response image, wherein said untrustable determination is based on a failure to receive said information;
and
facilitating registration, via the computing device, of the mobile device by employing a text-message mechanism when the challenge-response image is unsupportable on the mobile device.

3 more elements

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-executable instructions, that when executed by a processor associated with a computing device, performs a method comprising:

receiving, over a network, a request for registration from a mobile device;
determining that a carrier gateway associated with the mobile device is trustable, said trustable determination comprising receiving information corresponding to a mobile device identifier from the carrier gateway, said information comprising at least one item of information chosen from a group of information items consisting of a Mobile Identification Number, an Electronic Serial Number, and an application serial number;
registering the mobile device based on the mobile device identifier when the carrier gateway associated with the mobile device is determined trustable, said registration is independent of an action from a user of the mobile device if the mobile device is unregistered;
facilitating registration of the mobile device_based on the determination that the carrier gateway is untrustable and a determination that the mobile device supports a display of a challenge-response image, wherein said untrustable determination is based on a failure to receive said information;
and
facilitating registration of the mobile device by employing a text-message mechanism when the challenge-response image is unsupportable on the mobile device.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.