Apparatus and measurement method for identifying network devices

An apparatus for identifying network devices in a communications network without using explicit identification information of the network devices, the apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• memory comprising software, which when executed by the processor, implements:
• a data acquirer configured to receive data from a plurality of network devices in the communications network;
• and
• an interpreter configured to:
• extract identification data from the data, the identification including information from which the identity of the network devices may be inferred;
• analyse the extracted identification data by:
• analysing as a first criterion of a group of criteria an association of the identification data with one or more specific network devices to identify at least one of a similarity of measured data of a physical clock of the network devices to a predefined pattern and/or to previously measured data of the physical clock of the network devices, and
• analysing one or more further criterion of the group of criteria to identify additional associations of the identification data with the one or more specific network devices based on traffic information;
• determine, based on the results of the analyzing of the first criterion and the one or more further criterion, which of the plurality of network devices has sent the received data;
• evaluating the results of the analysing to provide feedback to a user by:
• determining, for each network device identified on the basis of the criteria, a separate confidence value for each criterion,
• determining for each identified network device an overall confidence value from the confidence values of all the analysed criteria, and
• determining the overall confidence value by forming an arithmetic mean, by forming a median, by forming a geometric mean, by forming a harmonic mean, by forming a quadratic mean, or by forming a cubic mean from the confidence values of the individual criteria;
• and
• providing the overall confidence value to the user.