CLIENT DEVICE IDENTIFICATION WHEN COMMUNICATING THROUGH A NETWORK ADDRESS TRANSLATOR DEVICE

• US 20090177797A1
• Filed: 12/18/2008
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommWorks Solutions, LLC (IP Investments Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: AOL LLC (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Watson, Richard A. JR., Rodriguez-Val, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 7,814,230 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/245
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2571 for identification, e.g. for authentication or billing charging arrangements H04L12/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

Enabling a host system to communicate with and to identify at least one client device that communicates with the host system through a network address translator device includes enabling communications from a first client device through the network address translator device. A data packet is received that includes a payload portion and an attribute portion, where the attribute portion includes a destination address that indicates a destination for the data packet and a nearest source address. A portion of the received data packet other than the nearest source address is examined for a host-assigned identifier that identifies a client device that communicated the received data packet. The received data packet typically is processed in accordance with predetermined host system controls accessible to the host system for the first client device identified, such as host-enabled parental controls.

Claims

1. A method for a host system to communicate with and to identify at least one client device that communicates with the host system through a network address translator device, the method comprising:

enabling communications from a first client device through a network address translator device;

receiving, at a host system, a data packet that includes a payload portion and an attribute portion, wherein the attribute portion includes a destination address that indicates a destination for the data packet;

examining a portion of the received data packet for a host-assigned identifier that identifies a client device that communicated the received data packet; and

processing the received data packet in accordance with predetermined host system controls accessible to the host system for the first client device if the host-assigned identifier identifies the first client device.