Patent ID: 7853703

Claim:
A non-transitory machine readable storage medium storing instructions which when executed by a data processing system causes the system to perform a method, comprising: assigning a first device identifier to a first communication device of a network, the first device identifier corresponding to a particular user using the first communication device in the network, wherein the first device identifier comprises a unique user identifier to identify the particular user using the first communication device and a first unique data item to uniquely identify the first communication device; signing the first communication device onto the network using the first device identifier without signing the particular user onto the network, wherein the first device identifier allows the presence of the first communication device to be detected on the network regardless of whether or not the particular user signs onto the network using the unique user identifier; and signing the particular user onto the network using the unique user identifier, wherein the first device identifier allows the particular user to sign off of the network while maintaining device presence so that a task involving the first communication device can be performed while the particular user is not online.