Patent ID: 8837528

Claim:
A method for network communications, the method comprising: communicating with an originating device during an originating session; receiving originating data from the originating device over a communication link, wherein the originating data includes data created at the originating device and a message hop count; determining based on the message hop count a priority status associated with validating, authenticating, and then communicating the originating data to a receiving device; validating the originating data to ensure that the originating data is valid, wherein validating the originating data includes verifying that the originating data is in a proper format to be correctly parsed to determine the originating device, intended recipient, and data payload; authenticating the originating device, wherein authenticating includes verifying that the originating device is an authorized data source for the receiving device, wherein an intermediate communication device will not further communicate the originating data when validation or authentication fails; editing the originating data so as to increment the message hop count; communicating with the receiving device during a receiving session; and sending the originating data to the receiving device over a wireless communication link, wherein the originating session and the receiving session occur at different times, and at least one of the sessions is an ad hoc communication session.