US 11,356,419 B1Granted

System and method for retrieving aggregated information about virtual private network servers

AssigneeOversec, UAB

InventorsAdomas Nosalis, Darjus Ilcevic

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Abstract

A method and system to communicate VPN server information to a client application without providing a full list of VPN server IP addresses. Instead, the method includes VPN server selection criteria that can be requested by client applications, such as “Free or Premium servers”, “Geolocation”, “Load”, “Streaming and protocol capabilities”, etc. A tagged data payload (e.g., JSON) can be used to provide these criteria, upon a request by a client application. Various groupings of VPN servers can be represented by the above criteria. The method communicates the available VPN servers to a client application without sending and revealing the full list of VPN servers stored in the VPN infrastructure. This makes the VPN server selection efficient, reduces network load and VPN tunnel establishing time, also, ensures confidentiality of VPN server lists that is important for any of VPN service providers and users.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A method for retrieving indexed information about Virtual Private Network servers and establishing a VPN connection to a selected server from an indexed list of servers, wherein the method is performed by a VPN service provider infrastructure, wherein the VPN service provider infrastructure comprises at least an application programming interface (API), a processing unit, and a server database;

comprising:
collecting a list of data pertaining to a plurality of VPN servers;
wherein the data pertaining to VPN servers comprises IP address, location, and service attributes;
aggregating and indexing the VPN servers' data into the server database;
indexing VPN servers' data in the at least one processor according to a VPN server's service attributes and location;
receiving a request, at the API, from a VPN client application, to retrieve a selection of VPN servers' criteria;
wherein the selection of VPN servers' criteria is any number of the following:
location and service attributes;
and wherein VPN servers are grouped according to the selection criteria and only available VPN servers are counted in the groups;
wherein available servers are those servers which are capable of servicing a VPN connection;
providing a list of VPN servers' selection criteria of available VPN servers to the VPN client application;
wherein the number of available servers and IP addresses of available VPN servers is not provided to the user device;
returning a set of selection criteria related to one or more available VPN servers, from the VPN client application to the processing unit;
selecting one of the one or more available VPN servers having the returned set of selection criteria and providing the IP address of the selected VPN server to the VPN client application;
and
connecting the VPN client application to the selected server.

13 more elements

A system for retrieving indexed information about Virtual Private Network servers and establishing a VPN connection to a selected server from an indexed list of servers, comprising:

A plurality of VPN servers, at least one server probe, a VPN client application, a network, and a VPN service provider infrastructure, wherein the VPN service provider infrastructure further comprises an application programming interface (API), at least one processor, at least one memory device communicably coupled to the at least one processor, and logic encoded in one or more non-transitory computer readable medium for execution by the at least one processor and when executed operable to:
collect a list of data pertaining to a plurality of VPN servers;
wherein the data pertaining to VPN servers comprises IP address, location, and service attributes;
aggregate the VPN servers' data into the server database;
index VPN servers' data in the at least one processor according to VPN servers' service attributes;
receive a request, at the API, from the VPN client application, to retrieve a selection of VPN servers' criteria;
wherein the selection of VPN servers' criteria is any number of the following:
location and service attributes;
wherein VPN servers are grouped according to the service attributes and only available VPN servers are counted in the groups;
wherein available servers are those servers which are capable of servicing a user device connection;
provide a list of VPN servers' selection criteria of available VPN servers to the VPN client application;
wherein the number of available servers and IP addresses of available VPN servers is not provided to the user device;
return a set of selection criteria related to one or more available VPN servers, from the VPN client application to the processing unit;
select one or the one or more available VPN server having the returned set of selection criteria and providing the IP address of the selected VPN server to the VPN client application;
and
connect the VPN client application to the selected server.

13 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.