Patent ID: 7788378

Claim:
A method of discovering a community relay node within a network community, wherein the community relay node is operatively coupled to an access-protected client and adapted to facilitate communication between the access-protected client and a requesting client, the method comprising: receiving a request message from a requesting client relating to a request for a community relay node; resolving the request message to a first serverless name resolution protocol name associated with a first cache adapted to store a first list of community relay nodes or a second serverless name resolution protocol name associated with a second cache adapted to store a second list of community relay nodes; selecting a community relay node from among the first list of community relay nodes if the request message is resolved to the first serverless name resolution protocol name or from among the second list of community relay nodes if the request message is resolved to the second serverless name resolution protocol name, wherein the first list of community relay nodes comprises at least one internet protocol address associated with a first community relay node and the second list of community relay nodes comprises at least one internet protocol address associated with a second community relay node; and returning an internet protocol address of the selected community relay node to the requesting client.