Patent ID: 9648000
Date: 2017-05-09
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. A method for authenticating user equipment access to a device over a communications network, the method comprising: sending a first message to the user equipment, the first message requesting a human user of the user equipment to power off the device; after sending the first message, detecting that the device is not available; after sending the first message, sending a second message to the user equipment, the second message requesting that the user power on the device; after sending the second message, detecting that the device is available; and authenticating user equipment access to the device as a result of the detection of the unavailability of the device followed by the detection of the availability of the device, wherein the device is configured such that after the device is powered on, the device transmits a heartbeat message, the step of detecting that the device is not available comprises determining that no heartbeat messages from the device have been received within a heartbeat time interval, and the step of detecting that the device is available comprises determining that a heartbeat message from the device was received after the second message was sent to the user equipment.