Patent ID: 7600043

Claim:
An information appliance that accesses content stored in a content server through a computer network, the information appliance comprising: a first IP address acquisition unit that acquires URI information of the content from the content server and extracts a content server IP address from the URI information, the content server IP address including a network address bit string identifying a subnet that includes the content server and a host address bit string identifying the content server; a second IP address acquisition unit that acquires an appliance IP address assigned to the information appliance, the appliance IP address including a network address bit string identifying a subnet that includes the information appliance and a host address bit string identifying the information appliance; a determination unit that determines whether or not the network address bit string of the content server IP address matches the network address bit string of the appliance IP address; and a control unit that permits access to the content server when the network address bit string of the content server IP address matches the network address bit string of the appliance IP address, and denies access to the content server when the network address bit string of the content server does not match the network address bit string of the appliance IP address.