Patent ID: 7496662
Filing Date: 2009-02-24
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for selecting an operating system of a network device from the results of two or more operating system identification techniques used in a passive network detection system, comprising: employing the two or more operating system identification techniques to create two or more operating system results; assigning each of the two or more operating system results a confidence value; comparing confidence values of the two or more operating system results; and selecting a result with a highest confidence value as the operating system of the network device, wherein the confidence values are pre-determined numeric weights based respectively on the two or more operating system identification techniques used to produce the two or more operating system results, further, if the selected result is equivalent to a previous selected result for the network device, adding a confirming increment value to a confidence value of the previous selected result to produce a confidence value of the result, wherein the confirming increment value is calculated as one half an absolute value of a difference between the confidence value of the previous selected result and the confidence value of the result; if the result is not equivalent to the previous selected result for the network device, calculating a detracting increment value as one half of the confirming increment value and subtracting the detracting increment value from the confidence value of the previous selected result to produce the confidence value of the result.