Patent ID: 8014801

Claim:
A system for blocking an identifier of a device sending a message, the system comprising: a wireless network; a sending device on the wireless network, the sending device being a wireless telephone, the sending device having a sender identification, wherein the sending device is capable of sending a message over the network; a network component on the wireless network, the network component containing logic to receive the message from the sending device, remove the sender identification from the message, and replace the sender identification with a text string, the text string being a user-created alias for the sending device; and a receiving device on the wireless network, wherein the sending device prefaces a receiving address of the receiving device with a pre-selected code, the pre-selected code instructing the network component to remove the sender identification, and the receiving device receives the message with the text string such that the sending device remains anonymous to the receiving device, wherein the network component associates the sender identification with a key, the key generated by combining the text string with the receiving address, the network component storing the key in a memory such that the memory may be referenced in order to direct a response to the message back to the sending device.