Patent ID: 7032242

Claim:
A method for distributed network address translation with security, comprising the following steps: at a first network device on a first computer network, requesting with a first protocol, one or more locally unique security values from a second network device on the first computer network, wherein the second network device has a publicly routable address, and wherein the second network device's publicly routable address in combination with the one or more locally unique security values are used to uniquely identify the first network device during secure communications with a third network device on a second external network; receiving the one or more locally unique security values on the first network device from the second network device with the first protocol; and storing the one or more locally unique security values on the first network device, wherein the one or more locally unique security values are used to create a secure virtual connection for secure communications between the first network device and the third network device, wherein the secure communications include the one or more locally unique secure values, and wherein the second network device routes secure communication data from the third network device to the first network device in response to the one or more locally unique security values.