Offering and provisioning secured wireless virtual private network services

• US 20070255840A1
• Filed: 04/28/2006
• Published: 11/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jones, David, Kuehnel, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,560 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/162 at the data link layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup

Abstract

An electronic device may present a user interface for making selections related to connecting to a network or selecting a network from a plurality of available networks. Additionally, a user interface may give a user an opportunity to secure to an open, unsecure, connection, for example, an ad-hoc wireless connection, such as may be found at a coffee shop. A selection of security offerings may be made from a user interface screen including pre-populated service providers. A user may be allowed to save preferences for connecting to new networks, as well as preferences related to previously used networks. Further, the user may save preferences for invoking security services on a per-network or pan-network basis. The security service may a known tunneling protocol (i.e. VPN), such as L2TP or PPTP.

Claims

1. A method of securing a network connection comprising:

determining when at least one network is available for a connection;

presenting a user interface for making a selection corresponding to the at least one network;

receiving an indication of a selected network;

determining when the selected network is unsecured;

presenting a user interface corresponding to a service for securing the network connection;

receiving a response to offering the service; and

storing a value corresponding to one of the service and the selected network for use during a subsequent network session.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising reading a value corresponding to network settings after determining when at least one network connection is available, wherein the value corresponds to instructions for one of connecting to and securing the at least one network connection.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising installing a network connection manager.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising securing the network connection when the receiving a response to offering the service is affirmative.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein securing the network connection comprises securing the network connection using one of a layer two tunneling protocol (L2TP) and a point-to-point tunneling protocol (PPTP).

6. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the value corresponding to one of the service and the at least one network session comprises storing a first value for securing any network connection using the service.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the value corresponding to one of the service and the at least one network session comprises storing a first value for replicating management of network connection when the at least one network is available in a subsequent session.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the value corresponding to one of the service and the at least one network session comprises storing a first value for using the service when subsequently selecting the at least one network.

9. A computer-readable medium storing computer executable instructions for implementing a wireless connection manager in an electronic device comprising:

a network monitor module for determining availability of a wireless network;

a presentation manager module coupled to the network monitor for presenting the availability of the wireless network and for presenting network security offerings;

a link manager module for activating a security offering responsive to the presentation manager receiving a selection of the wireless network and the security offering.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising a setting manager module for saving settings corresponding to repeating selected behaviors when the network monitor determines subsequent availability of the wireless network.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising a pre-load manager module for storing one or more network security offerings.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising a setting manager module for saving settings corresponding to automatically securing all wireless network connections, responsive to an instruction to automatically secure all wireless network connections.

13. A method of managing wireless connections to unsecured network providers on an electronic device comprising:

installing a secured connection manager on the electronic device;

installing a client for a network security service;

presenting a user interface for receiving a preference for securing a connection to a selected one of the unsecured network providers;

storing the preference for securing the connection to a selected unsecured network provider;

attaching to the selected unsecured network provider using an unsecured connection;

invoking the secured connection manager to connect to the network security service according to the preference stored.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the network security service is a layer two tunneling protocol secured service.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the network security service is a point-to-point tunneling protocol.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein installing a client for a network security service comprises installing a service offering using an OEM pre-installation kit at the time of manufacture of the electronic device.