Walled Garden System for Providing Access to One or More Websites that Incorporate Content from Other websites and Method Thereof

A method of providing access to one or more websites specified on a cleared sites list, the cleared sites list having one or more hostname descriptors, the method comprising:

• providing a firewall having rules associated with a cleared internet protocol (IP) list including one or more cleared IP addresses;
• providing a controller having access to the cleared sites list;
• permitting, by the firewall, transfer of a cleared hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request from a user device to a cleared destination IP address that matches one of the cleared IP addresses;
• examining, by the controller, a non-cleared HTTP request from the user device to a non-cleared destination IP address that does not match one of the cleared IP addresses;
• transparent proxying between the user device and the non-cleared destination IP address when a destination host header of the non-cleared HTTP request matches a hostname descriptor of the cleared sites list;
• and
• transparent proxying between the user device and the non-cleared destination IP address when a referrer header of the non-cleared HTTP request matches a hostname descriptor of the cleared sites list.

A system for providing access to one or more websites specified on a cleared sites list, the cleared sites list having one or more hostname descriptors, the system comprising:

• means for permitting transfer of a cleared hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request from a user device to a cleared destination IP address that matches a cleared IP addresses;
• means for examining a non-cleared HTTP request from the user device to a non-cleared destination IP address that does not match a cleared IP addresses;
• means for transparent proxying between the user device and the non-cleared destination IP address when a destination host header of the non-cleared HTTP request matches a hostname descriptor of the cleared sites list;
• and
• means for transparent proxying between the user device and the non-cleared destination IP address when a referrer header of the non-cleared HTTP request matches a hostname descriptor of the cleared sites list.