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:
Jul. 18, 2017
Filed:
Oct. 21, 2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
Hamed Okhravi, Billerica, MA (US);
Richard W. Skowyra, Somerville, MA (US);
Kevin Bauer, Westford, MA (US);
William W. Streilein, Sudbury, MA (US);
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for the randomization of packet headers is disclosed. A controller is used to provide random values, also referred to as nonces, that replace the source and destination addresses that typically appear in a packet header. The controller also provides routing rules to the switches and routers in the network that allow these devices to properly route packets, even though the source and destination addresses are not present. In some embodiments, network devices that support software-defined networking (SDN) are employed. The number of times that a particular nonce is used may be variable. In some embodiments, a nonce is used for exactly one packet header. In this way, packets may traverse a network using nonces in place of actual source and destination addresses. Because the nonces are changed periodically, detection of traffic patterns is made significantly more difficult.