Sharing Protection for a Screen Sharing Experience

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018121663-A1
Application number	US-201615340763-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 1, 2016
Priority date	Nov 1, 2016
Publication date	May 3, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Techniques for sharing protection for a screen sharing experience are described. In at least some embodiments, a screen sharing experience involves a user sharing portions of their display screen with other users as part of a communication session. According to various embodiments, a user that is sharing their screen with other devices as part of a screen sharing experience can protect a portion of the screen from being shared by designating the portion as sharing protected. Thus, content from the identified portion of the user's screen is encrypted to prevent other devices that are unable to decrypt the content from viewing the content. According to one or more embodiments, a user can be designated as sharing privileged such that the user is permitted access to an encryption key to decrypt and view sharing protected as part of a screen sharing experience.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system comprising:
at least one processor; and one or more computer-readable storage media including instructions stored thereon that, responsive to execution by the at least one processor, cause the system perform operations including:
ascertaining that a region of shared media is to be sharing protected as part of a screen sharing experience;
causing content from the region to be encrypted with a key during the screen sharing experience between a group of participants in the screen sharing experience; and
designating a first participant of the group of participants as sharing privileged such that the key is permitted to be accessible for the first participant to enable the content to be decrypted for the first participant as part of the screen sharing experience, and a second participant of the group of participants is not designated as sharing privileged such that the key is not permitted to be accessible for the second participant as part of the screen sharing experience.

2 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein said ascertaining is responsive to user input identifying the region of shared media.

3 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the region of shared media corresponds to a region of a display area of a client device.

4 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein said designating permits the key to be accessible to a first device associated with the first participant, but does not permit the key to be accessible to a second device associated with the second participant.

5 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged is based on user input specifying the first participant as being a privileged user, the user input comprising user interaction with a meeting invite for the communication session.

6 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged causes the key to be attached to a meeting invite for the communication session that is sent to the first participant.

7 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged causes a pointer to the key included with a meeting invite for the communication session that is sent to the first participant.

8 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged is based on a group membership of the first participant, and wherein the key is accessible to members of the group.

9 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein the operations further include:
sending a privileged invite for the communication session to the first participant, the privileged invite enabling access to the key; and sending a standard invite for the communication session to the second participant, the standard invite not enabling access to the key.

10 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the operations further include causing a data stream to be communicated to a first device associated with the first participant and a second device associated with the second participant as part of the screen sharing experience, the data stream including encrypted content from the region along with different content from a different region of the shared media that is not encrypted with the key.

11 . A system as recited in claim 1 , wherein the region of shared media corresponds to a region of a display device of a client device, the screen sharing experience comprises a real-time communication session that includes the client device, a first device associated with the first participant, and a second device associated with the second participant, and wherein said causing and said designating are performed dynamically during the communication session.

12 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
ascertaining that a first region of a display area of a client device is to be sharing protected; causing, responsive to said ascertaining, the first region to be encrypted at the client device such that the first region is visually obscured on the display area of the client device; capturing a video image of the display area that includes the visually obscured first region and a non-obscured second region of the display area of the client device; and communicating the video image to a different device as part of a screen sharing experience between the client device and the different device.

13 . A method as described in claim 12 , further comprising encoding the video image as a single encoded data stream, and wherein said communicating comprises communicating the single encoded video stream to the different device to enable a visual representation of the obscured first region and the non-obscured second region to be displayed at the different device.

14 . A method as described in claim 12 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a real-time communication session that includes the client device and the different device.

15 . A method as described in claim 12 , wherein said ascertaining is based on user input identifying the first region as sharing protected.

16 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
ascertaining that a region of shared media is to be sharing protected as part of a screen sharing experience; receiving user input specifying a first participant in the screen sharing experience that is to be permitted access to content from the region of the shared media; causing content from the region to be encrypted with a key during the screen sharing experience between a group of participants in the screen sharing experience; and designating the first participant of the group of participants as sharing privileged such that the key is permitted to be accessible for the first participant to enable the content to be decrypted for the first participant as part of the screen sharing experience, and a second participant of the group of participants is not designated as sharing privileged such that the key is not permitted to be accessible for the second participant as part of the screen sharing experience.

17 . A method as described in claim 16 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged causes the key to be attached to a meeting invite for the communication session that is sent to the first participant.

18 . A method as described in claim 16 , wherein the screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged causes a pointer to the key included with a meeting invite for the communication session that is sent to the first participant, the meeting invite not including a copy of the key.

19 . A method as described in claim 16 , wherein screen sharing experience comprises a communication session, and wherein the user input comprises user configuration of an invite to the communication session.

20 . A method as described in claim 16 , wherein said designating the first participant as sharing privileged is based on a group membership of the first participant, and wherein the key is accessible to members of the group.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Hassan Amer Aref
• Verthein William George
• Smith Andrew Nicholas Paul

Classifications

• G06F21/84

  output devices, e.g. displays or monitors · CPC title

• H04L63/06

  for supporting key management in a packet data network (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for key management H04L9/08) · CPC title

• G09G2358/00

  Arrangements for display data security · CPC title

• H04L63/104

  Grouping of entities · CPC title

• H04L65/403

  Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15) · CPC title