Patent ID: 8769629

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, at a local node of a network, authorization data that indicates a particular network address of a different node in the network and an authenticated user identifier (ID) of a user of the different node, wherein the user ID is associated with resource profile data that indicates application layer resources on the network that the user is allowed to access, and wherein the resource profile data includes a whitelist that is provisioned based on the user ID, the whitelist comprising a permitted list of identifiers of one or more application layer resources that the user is allowed to access regardless of the resource profile data, wherein each application layer resource is associated with a rating that comprises a plurality of values for a corresponding plurality of attributes that describe types of content of the application layer resource, wherein the resource profile data includes user category data associated with the user ID indicating a user category of the user, and wherein the user category determines an acceptable range of values for each of the plurality of attributes; associating the particular network address with the resource profile data for the user; and blocking a request from the particular network address for a requested application layer resource on the network based on the resource profile data associated with the particular network address.