Patent ID: 9749150
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method for monitoring network communications, comprising: capturing one or more packets of data in a network stack of a computing device; associating a unique identifier with the computing device, the unique identifier for persistently uniquely identifying the computing device without needing to know the architecture of a network the computing device is located on and the unique identifier does not change if the computing device migrates from the network to another network or outside of the network; storing the unique identifier; sampling the contents of each of the one or more captured packets of data, the sample of the contents of each of the one or more captured packets of data including a header or a portion of the header of each of the one or more captured packets of data and an adjustable amount of the body of each of the one or more captured packets of data; generating hybrid flow data by processing the stored unique identifier and the sample of the contents of each of the one or more captured packets of data, the hybrid flow data comprising the unique identifier and the sample of the contents of each of the one or more captured packets of data; persistently storing the hybrid flow data; and modifying each of the one or more packets of data by watermarking for tracking each of the one or more individual packets of data emitted by the computing device for uniquely identifying packets originating from the computing device regardless of where in the world the data packet was captured by nullifying the effect of network address translation for each individual packet; wherein the associating, sampling, generating, and modifying require no knowledge of network address translation and network topology of the network.