US Patent 8086842 Peer-to-peer contact exchange

A system may publish authenticated contact information in a publicly available index store, retrieve the contact information, and validate it. The claimed method and system may provide a client-based, server optional approach to publishing. The publicly available index store may be a distributed hash table used in a peer-to-peer network. The system may be used in other secure directory service applications where a server may not be available or where server trust may be minimal.