The use of multiple computing devices having differing capabilities together in a collaborative manner by a single person has become commonplace. Specifically, it has become commonplace for one person to make use of such a group of computing devices as a work computer system, a home computer system, a smartphone, a tablet computer and a computer system in their car together, along with ancillary computing devices such as a digital wireless communications headset and/or wrist-worn device displaying textual information. It has become expected that information (e.g., emails, appointments, contact information, document, music audio files, maps, digital photos, etc.) associated with that one person will be automatically synchronized and made available among multiple computing devices in such a group such that the one person is able to access and make use of that information using any of them.
An integral part of such collaborative use of a group of computing devices is arranging secure network communications (usually via wireless networks) among them. Each of these computing devices must in some way be configured to share information associated with that one person only with other computing devices of that group. Stated differently, each of those computing devices must be configured to enable relatively seamless sharing of information among them while avoiding sharing that information with other computing devices that are not part of that group.
The most widely accepted and used approach to configuring computing devices to operate in this manner is commonly referred to as “pairing” where that one person brings one of the computing devices that has already been configured for such secure collaborative use in that group into close proximity with another computing device that they wish to add to that group as a new “member.” In current incarnations of pairing, wireless signals are exchanged between those two devices over a relatively short range form of wireless communications to convey information from the one computing device that is already a member of that group to the other computing device that is being added. The short range of those wireless communications is often relied upon to ensure security by precluding the possibility of unauthorized devices intercepting those signals. However, this approach does necessitate having possession of at least one of the computing devices that is already a member of that group available to bring into that close proximity to that other computing device to be added as a new member. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the embodiments described herein are needed.