The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 27, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 20, 1995
Sami Shaio, San Francisco, CA (US);
Arthur Van Hoff, Mountain View, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for determining the trust worthiness of executable packets, e.g., internet applets, being transmitted within a computer network. The computer network includes both secured computers and unsecured computers, which are associated with secured nodes and unsecured nodes, respectively. Each executable packet has a source address and a destination address. In one embodiment, an intelligent firewall determines within a first degree of certainty whether the source address of an executable packet arriving at one of the secured computers is associated with anyone of the secured nodes, and also determines within a second degree of certainty whether the destination address of the executable packet is associated with anyone of the secured nodes. If the firewall determines within the first degree of certainty that the source address is associated with anyone of the secured nodes, and further determines within the second degree of certainty or is uncertain whether the destination address is associated with anyone of the secured nodes, then the firewall permits the executable packet to execute on the secured computer. Alternatively, if the firewall determines within the first degree of certainty or is uncertain whether the source address is associated with anyone of the secured nodes, and further determines within the second degree of certainty that the destination address is not associated with anyone of the secured nodes, then the firewall also permits the executable packet to proceed to the secured computer.