Stealth packet switching

• US 20050094640A1
• Filed: 11/10/2004
• Published: 05/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wayne Richard Howe
• Original Assignee: Wayne Richard Howe
• Inventors: Howe, Wayne Richard
• Granted Patent: US 8,428,069 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/395.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0638 Clock or time synchronisation among nodes; Internode synchronisation synchronization for ring networks H04L12/422; data switching networks with synchronous transmission H04L12/43
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0682 by delay compensation, e.g. by compensation of propagation delay or variations thereof, by ranging
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2416 Real-time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/205 Quality of Service based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/251 Cut-through or wormhole routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/602 Multilayer or multiprotocol switching, e.g. IP switching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227

Abstract

Systems, methods, devices, and network architectures are disclosed for creating and implementing secure wireless, wired, and/or optical stealth-enabled networks using specially modified packets, cells, frames, and/or other “stealth” information structures. This enables stealth packets to have a low probability of detection, a low probability of interception, and a low probability of interpretation. Stealth packets are only detected, intercepted, and correctly interpreted by stealth-enabled network equipment. In its simplest form, stealth packet switching modifies the packet structure, protocols, timing, synchronization, and other elements through various rule-violations. This creates stealth packets, which normal equipment cannot receive correctly, and hence normal equipment discards the stealth packets. Stealth packets may be further enhanced with encryption techniques which focus on encrypting the packet structure itself, as opposed to merely encrypting the data. Using encryption to modify the packet structure itself adds an entirely new level of encryption complexity, thus making the stealth communications orders of magnitude more difficult to decrypt than standard decryption techniques. Combining stealth packets with time-based reservation packet switching enables total encryption of the packet (including header and preamble encryption) capable of routing through multiple hops without decryption of headers and preamble at each hop. Time-based reservation packet switching can also guarantee real-time stealth packet delivery through a network that is totally congested from data storms, virus caused congestion, and/or denial of service attacks.

Claims

1. A method for transferring information structures, comprising the steps of:

assembling a first information structure;

modifying said first information structure to violate information structure rules, thereby forming a second modified information structure; and

transferring said second modified information structure with rule violations.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

receiving said second modified information structure with said rule violations; and

interpreting said second modified information structure with said rule violations such that said first information structure is correctly understood.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said information structures comprise one or more data formats selected from the group consisting of packets, cells, frames, stealth packets, packet subsections, fields, preambles, start of frame delimiters, headers, trailers, and flags.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of modifying said first information structure comprises one or more actions selected from the group comprising violating rules, violating packet structure rules, altering packet format, altering packet length, violating content rules, violating pattern rules, causing bit rate violations, causing encoding violations, causing procedural violations, causing errors, causing faults, altering fields, violating protocol rules, adding one or more bits, deleting one or more bits, rearranging one or more bits, transposing one or more bits, substituting one or more bits, permutating one or more bits, inverting one or more bits, encrypting one or more bits, altering clock synchronization, altering clock phasing, altering clock timing, altering packet subsections, altering preambles, altering synchronization bits, altering start of frame delimiters, altering headers, altering trailers, and altering flags.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of transferring comprises one or more actions selected from the group comprising originating, transmitting, encoding, receiving, switching, routing, forwarding, bypassing, intercepting, detecting, interpreting, and analyzing.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said rule violations comprise one or more actions from the group consisting of violating packet structure rules, altering packet format, altering packet length, violating content rules, violating pattern rules, causing bit rate violations, causing encoding violations, causing procedural violations, causing errors, causing faults, altering fields, violating protocol rules, adding one or more bits, deleting one or more bits, rearranging one or more bits, transposing one or more bits, substituting one or more bits, permutating one or more bits, inverting one or more bits, encrypting one or more bits, altering clock synchronization, altering clock phasing, altering clock timing, altering packet subsections, altering preambles, altering synchronization bits, altering start of frame delimiters, altering headers, altering trailers, and altering flags.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of transferring comprises transferring in accordance with a time-based reservation schedule.

8. A network system for transferring information structures, comprising:

one or more first network elements capable of transferring one or more information structures in accordance with one or more information structure rule violations;

one or more second network elements capable of receiving and correctly deconstructing said one or more information structures in accordance with said one or more information structure rule violations;

a communications medium between said one or more first network elements and said one or more second network elements for transferring said one or more information structures in accordance with said one or more information structure rule violations.

9. The network of claim 8, further comprising:

one or more third network elements capable of receiving and not correctly deconstructing said one or more information structures in accordance with said one or more rule violations.

10. The network of claim 8, wherein said one or more network elements is capable of transferring one or more information structures without rule violations.

11. The network of claim 8, wherein said information structures comprise one or more data formats selected from the group consisting of packets, cells, frames, stealth packets, packet subsections, fields, preambles, start of frame delimiters, headers, trailers, and flags.

12. The network of claim 8, wherein said rule violations comprise one or more actions from the group consisting of violating packet structure rules, altering packet format, altering packet length, violating content rules, violating pattern rules, causing bit rate violations, causing encoding violations, causing procedural violations, causing errors, causing faults, altering fields, violating protocol rules, adding one or more bits, deleting one or more bits, rearranging one or more bits, transposing one or more bits, substituting one or more bits, permutating one or more bits, inverting one or more bits, encrypting one or more bits, altering clock synchronization, altering clock phasing, altering clock timing, altering packet subsections, altering preambles, altering synchronization bits, altering start of frame delimiters, altering headers, altering trailers, and altering flags.

13. The network of claim 8, wherein said communications medium comprises one or more types from the group consisting of wired communications media, wireless communications media, optical communications media, shared communications media, non-shared communications media, local area network communications media, and point-to-point communications media.

14. The network of claim 8, wherein said one or more network elements is capable of transferring said one or more information structures in accordance with a time-based schedule.

15. A device for transferring information structures with rule violations, comprising:

one or more output sections for transferring one or more information structures with one or more information structure rule violations; and

a policy manager, wherein said policy manager implements said one or more information structure rule violations for said one or more information structures in said one or more output sections.

16. The device of claim 15, further comprising:

one or more input sections for receiving one or more information structures with one or more information structure rule violations, wherein said policy manager correctly deconstructs said one or more information structure rule violations in said one or more input sections.

17. The device of claim 16, further comprising:

one or more switching fabrics for switching one or more information structures from said one or more input sections to said one or more output sections.

18. The device of claim 15, wherein said information structures comprise one or more data formats selected from the group consisting of packets, cells, frames, stealth packets, packet subsections, fields, preambles, start of frame delimiters, headers, trailers, and flags.

19. The device of claim 15, wherein said rule violations comprise one or more actions from the group consisting of violating packet structure rules, altering packet format, altering packet length, violating content rules, violating pattern rules, causing bit rate violations, causing encoding violations, causing procedural violations, causing errors, causing faults, altering fields, violating protocol rules, adding one or more bits, deleting one or more bits, rearranging one or more bits, transposing one or more bits, substituting one or more bits, permutating one or more bits, inverting one or more bits, encrypting one or more bits, altering clock synchronization, altering clock phasing, altering clock timing, altering packet subsections, altering preambles, altering synchronization bits, altering start of frame delimiters, altering headers, altering trailers, and altering flags.

20. The device of claim 15, wherein said policy manager is programmable to implement programmable information structure rule violations.