System and Method for Application-Level Virtual Private Network

A system for application-level virtual private networking, comprising:

• means for requesting access for sending requestor messages to an external resource by a requestor application within a user workstation;
• means for identifying the requestor application and calculating a hash value of the requestor application by a connection manager within the user workstation;
• means for forwarding the requestor messages and the calculated application hash value by the connection manager over a network to a channel gateway;
• means for receiving the requestor messages and the calculated application hash value by a channel receiver within the channel gateway;
• means for authenticating the received requester messages using the calculated application hash value and forwarding the requestor messages to the external resource;
• and
• means for receiving the requestor messages by the external resource.

A user interface method for application-level virtual private networking, comprising:

• defining a remote resource to be accessed without connection negotiation, including:
• selecting a remote resource to be accessed;
• designating a local port for accessing a virtual private network;
• providing an IP address of the remote resource;
• assigning a port number where the remote resource is available;
• defining a connection for the requestor application, including:
• using an executable application program for connecting to the remote resource;
• selecting a remote resource designation;
• supplying a user ID;
• entering a password;
• and
• clicking an enable button for accessing the remote resource.