Patent ID: 7782866

Claim:
A method comprising: registering, by a sponsoring agent, a virtual peer including a plurality of virtual peer members with a peer-to-peer (P2P) network such that the virtual peer is established as a peer in the P2P network, wherein each of the plurality of virtual peer members is communicatively coupled to the sponsoring agent; receiving, from a device other than one of the plurality of virtual peer members, an incoming message on behalf of the virtual peer at the sponsoring agent operating as a communication end-point for the virtual peer in the P2P network; sending, by the sponsoring agent, the incoming message to at least one of the plurality of virtual peer members; and effecting by-passing of the sponsoring agent for an outgoing message from the at least one of the plurality of virtual peer members to a desired recipient by: providing virtual peer credentials to the at least one of the plurality of virtual peer members to be used when providing an outgoing message to a desired recipient, wherein when the at least one of the plurality of virtual peer members provides the outgoing message to the desired recipient using the virtual peer credentials, the outgoing message appears to the desired recipient to have been provided by the virtual peer rather than the at least one of the plurality of virtual peer members.