Patent ID: 8793313

Claim:
A method for distributing peer-to-peer communications, comprising: establishing a communications channel for an amount of client nodes; determining an amount of proxy nodes required for the communications channel based upon the amount of client nodes; evaluating a list of potential proxy nodes available to a peer-to-peer communications network; comparing an Internet protocol (IP) address of each of the potential proxy nodes and an IP address of two or more client nodes to determine one or more disinterested proxy nodes; selecting a proxy node from the one or more disinterested proxy nodes; masking identification of the two or more client nodes on a communications channel of a peer-to-peer communications network by directing peer-to-peer communications of the two or more client nodes through the selected proxy node, the selected proxy node including a disinterested client node relative to the two or more client nodes, the disinterested client node providing network resources to the peer-to-peer communications network; and selecting an additional proxy node from a quick switch list of potential proxy nodes upon determining failure of the selected proxy node, the additional proxy node also including a disinterested client node relative to the two or more client nodes.