Cisco Technology, Inc.

Lucas Siba

Geoff Townsend

Brian Somers

Michael Ellery

David Ulevitch

Yariv Keinan

Scott Cressman

A DNS nameserver processes requests for domain name information based on subscriber identifiers, and optionally subscriber information. Based on a subscriber identifier, requests for a target domain name may generate a DNS response with domain name information for a proxy service. Techniques are provided to seamlessly and transparently authenticate a subscriber at the proxy service. The proxy service generates a redirect with a unique domain name including a tracking identifier in response to requests for a target domain name. The nameserver receives a request associated with the unique domain name. The nameserver responds with domain name information of the proxy service and generates a message to the proxy service mapping the tracking identifier to the subscriber identifier. The client then generates a request to the proxy service that includes the tracking identifier. The proxy service uses the mapping from the nameserver to authenticate the corresponding subscriber identifier.

Transparent proxy authentication via DNS processing

Techniques are presented herein for a DNS resolver to encode a falsified IP address with a client identifier that identifies a client attempting to access a blocked domain. The DNS resolver receives, from a client, a DNS request that contains a requested domain name and a client identifier. The DNS resolver then determines the identity of the client from the client identifier in the DNS request. The DNS resolver then applies policies for the domain name system request to determine that the requested domain name should be blocked for the identity of the client. The DNS resolver may then construct a falsified Internet Protocol address when the domain name should be blocked for the identified client, where the falsified Internet Protocol is encoded with the client identifier. The DNS resolver then sends to the client, in response to the DNS request, the falsified Internet Protocol address.

Domain name system identification and attribution

A client analyzes requests for network resources to determine an IP address associated with the request, such as a destination IP address of a network packet. The client device selectively routes the request and other traffic associated with the IP address. The client device establishes a tunnel or other direct connection with a remote server. Network traffic can be selectively routed to the destination IP address associated with a resource request, or to the remote server based on the destination IP address associated with the request. The system can route client network requests to the remote server based on a category or other information associated with the destination IP address. Network packets associated with malicious or suspicious IP addresses, for example, may be routed to the remote server for performance of security features, while packets associated with other IP addresses may be directly routed to their target destination.

Selective routing of network traffic for remote inspection in computer networks

Internet protocol addressing to uniquely identify clients and destinations across computer networks is provided. Communication between a proxy service and a DNS nameserver is facilitated to permit the DNS nameserver to send a subscriber identifier to the proxy service in response to a DNS request for a flagged domain name. The proxy service selects a unique IP address from a pool of IP addresses assigned to the proxy service. The proxy service associates the selected IP address with the subscriber identifier and optionally, the target domain name of the DNS request. The proxy service provides the unique IP address to the DNS nameserver which returns the unique IP address to the client device for the target domain name. The subscriber can then be authenticated at the proxy service transparently without input from the subscriber or client device based on the unique IP address provided by the client device to the proxy service.

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Langley, Canada

Lucas Siba