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US 2026/0205270 A1Published application
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 addressed to the first computing element from a second computing element;
- identifying a public encryption key in a header of the encrypted communication;
- identifying a stored association between a destination address of a destination computing element of a plurality of destination computing elements having different public encryption keys and the public encryption key;
- and
- forwarding the encrypted communication to the destination address.
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:
- identify an encrypted communication from a second computing element, wherein the computing apparatus is a first computing element;
- identify a public encryption key in a header of the encrypted communication;
- 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;
- and
- forward the encrypted communication to the address of the destination computing element.
6 more elements
A system comprising:
- a plurality of destination computing elements, including a destination computing element;
- and
- a relay computing element for the plurality of destination computing elements, the relay computing element configured to:
- identify an encrypted communication 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;
- and
- forward the encrypted communication to the destination IP address.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.