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US 12,574,214 B2Granted
Distribution and use of encryption keys to direct communications
AssigneeTailscale Inc.
InventorDavid J. Crawshaw
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Described herein are systems, methods, and software to direct communications for a private network using advertised encryption key information. In one implementation, a first computing element identifies an encrypted communication from a second computing element and identifies a destination computing element from a plurality of destination computing elements based on an application of encryption keys to the encrypted communication. The first computing element further forwards the encrypted communication to the destination computing element.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- in a first computing element, identifying an encrypted communication destined for a destination computing element of a plurality of destination computing elements but addressed to the first computing element from a second computing element;
- in the first computing element, identifying a public encryption key in a header of the encrypted communication;
- in the first computing element, identifying, from a data structure, an address of the destination computing element corresponding to the public encryption key, wherein the data structure associates network addresses of the plurality of destination computing elements with different public encryption keys;
- in the first computing element, replacing a first address in the encrypted communication with the address of the destination computing element, wherein the first address corresponds to the first computing element;
- and
- in the first computing element, after replacing the first address with the address of the destination computing element, forwarding the encrypted communication to the destination computing element at the address of the destination computing element.
3 more elements
A computing apparatus comprising:
- a storage system;
- a processing system operatively coupled to the storage system;
- and
- program instructions stored on the storage system that, when executed by the processing system, direct the computing apparatus to:
- in a first computing element, identify an encrypted communication destined for a destination computing element of a plurality of destination computing elements but addressed to the first computing element from a second computing element;
- in the first computing element, identifying a public encryption key in a header of the encrypted communication;
- in the first computing element, identify, from a data structure, an address of a destination computing element corresponding to the public encryption key, wherein the data structure associates network addresses of a plurality of destination computing elements, including the destination computing element, with different public encryption keys;
- in the first computing element, replace a first address in the encrypted communication with the address of the destination computing element, wherein the first address corresponds to the first computing element;
- and
- in the first computing element, after the first address is replaced with the address of the destination computing element, forward the encrypted communication to the destination computing element at the address of the destination computing element.
7 more elements
A system comprising:
- a plurality of destination computing elements, including a destination computing element;
- and
- a relay computing element communicatively coupled to the plurality of destination computing elements, the relay computing element configured to:
- identify an encrypted communication destined for the destination computing element but addressed to the relay computing element from a first computing element;
- identify a public encryption key used to encrypt the encrypted communication;
- identify a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of the destination computing element corresponding to the public encryption key, wherein the relay computing element maintains associations between IP addresses of the plurality of destination computing elements and public encryption keys, including the public encryption key, used by respective ones of the plurality of destination computing elements to encrypt communications;
- replace a first IP address in the encrypted communication with a destination IP address of the destination computing element, wherein the first IP address corresponds to the relay computing element;
- and
- after the first IP address is replaced with the destination IP address, forward the encrypted communication to the destination computing element at the destination IP address of the destination computing element.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.