Patent ID: 7954144

Claim:
A method for brokering state information exchanged between computers using at least one protocol above a transport layer, the method comprising the steps of: receiving at a transparent proxy a request from a client requesting a resource of an origin server, wherein the transparent proxy is unknown to the client; redirecting the client request from the transparent proxy to a policy module; obtaining at the transparent proxy policy enforcement data, the policy enforcement data is received from the policy module and the policy module and the transparent proxy reside within a same environment; generating at the transparent proxy a policy state token in response to the policy enforcement data; transmitting the policy state token from the transparent proxy to the client, the policy state token is used as an authentication of the client to the transparent proxy for subsequent interactions between the client and the transparent proxy, and the policy state token is represented as a transparent proxy cookie that maintains a relationship among the client, transparent proxy, and the origin server, the transparent proxy cookie includes an indication to the transparent proxy that the client has been authorized by the policy module to use the transparent proxy to access the resource of the origin server, the indication represented as a key whose checksum is verified by the transparent proxy; managing cookie communications, at the transparent proxy, the transparent proxy acting as an intermediary between the client and the origin server and the cookie communications are interactions between the client and the origin server where different client cookies and origin server cookies are expected to be present by the client and the origin server and client cookies presented to the origin server appear to the origin server to originate from the client when in fact the client cookies presented to the origin server originate from the transparent proxy; and managing all interactions between the client and the transparent proxy via existing network protocols and without changes to the client or the transparent proxy.