Patent ID: 8566475

Claim:
A method of enabling to identify a specific broadcast driven group of peers among multiple groups of peers on a peer-to-peer network, the method comprising: providing, via a broadcast network, a specific identifier of multiple identifiers that comprise globally unique group identifiers (group IDs) for linking a content broadcast to the specific broadcast driven group of peers; deriving, via a network-enabled consumer electronic apparatus, at an end-user site the specific identifier (i) from a further identifier, that comprises a DNS name of (i)(1) a broadcaster/service provider of the content broadcast or (i)(2) third party groups having a broadcaster negotiated link to the content broadcast, embedded in a broadcast stream of the content broadcast in response to a reception of the content broadcast, (ii) from a further identifier, that comprises a DNS name of (ii)(1) a broadcaster/service provider of the content broadcast or (ii)(2) third party groups having a broadcaster negotiated link to the content broadcast, embedded in an electronic program guide (EPG) in response to selecting the content broadcast from the EPG, and (iii) from a still further identifier that comprises (iii)(1) a program title being representative of the content broadcast that is used as a first identifier for mapping a peer group identifier (peer group ID) into the derived specific identifier and (iii)(2) a TV-anytime Content Reference Identifier that is also used for mapping the peer group ID as part of the step of deriving; and responsive to the specific identifier being derived, enabling, via the network-enabled consumer electronic apparatus, at the end-user site (i) a broadcast driven virtual private network connection within the peer-to-peer network (ii) to the specific broadcast driven group of peers (iii) specifically within a context of the content broadcast (iv) to form a corresponding specific broadcast driven virtual private network that improves the scalability of the virtual private network connection of the specific broadcast driven group of peers within the peer-to-peer network (v) by routing messages of the specific broadcast driven group of peers only through members of that group via the mapped peer group ID and not to all peers of the multiple groups of peers on the peer-to-peer network.