Patent ID: 8606898

Claim:
A system for communicating information, the system comprising: a first gateway defining a boundary between an external network and an internal network, the first gateway processing outbound traffic originating in the internal network at a source end; a first pool of real externally routable addresses for dynamic binding to one or more packets or connections of a node or a host in the internal network, the first gateway maintaining a table of network address translations corresponding with both dynamic bindings at the first gateway and with dynamic bindings at a second gateway remote from the first gateway, wherein at least some of the network address translations spread the identity of at least one particular node or host in the internal network across a plurality of the addresses of the first pool thereby mapping the real identity of the one particular node or host to many addresses in the first pool (one-to-many); and the first gateway simultaneously assigning at least one address in the first pool to an outbound packet or connection from at least two distinct internal nodes or hosts, thereby mapping the real identities of two distinct internal nodes or hosts to one of the addresses in the first pool (many-to-one); thereby further assigning a plurality of real routable network addresses from the pool to a plurality of the nodes or hosts (many-to-many), and wherein the many-to-many mappings are dynamic.