Spatiotemporal annotation of data packets in wireless networks

A wireless network over which information streams produced by an application on end-computing devices are transmitted, the network having at least one network element comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor device, coupled to the memory, operative to:
• inspect, on the fly, data packets which originate from the end-computing devices and are received by the network element for spatiotemporal metadata in the data packets themselves;
• consult user-configurable permission rules that dictate what spatiotemporal metadata is permissible and what spatiotemporal metadata is impermissible for the application;
• and
• insert spatiotemporal metadata into the data packets themselves in accordance with the user-configurable permission rules and transmit the data packets if the step of inspecting the data packets reveals that the data packets are missing spatiotemporal metadata, otherwise conform existing spatiotemporal metadata with the user-configurable permission rules and transmit the data packets if the step of inspecting the data packets reveals that spatiotemporal metadata is already present in the data packets themselves,
• wherein the user-configurable permission rules further designate a granularity of spatiotemporal metadata inserted into the data packets depending on one or more of an origin of the data packets, a destination of the data packets, application to which the data packets relate, time, and date, and wherein the insert and conform steps are performed only for application data-carrying packets meant to be processed by end-user applications.

An article of manufacture for processing information streams produced by an application on end-computing devices that are transmitted over a wireless network having at least one network element comprising a non-transitory machine-readable recordable medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

• inspecting, on the fly, data packets which originate from the end-computing devices and are received by the network element for spatiotemporal metadata in the data packets themselves;
• consulting user-configurable permission rules that dictate what spatiotemporal metadata is permissible and what spatiotemporal metadata is impermissible for the application;
• and
• inserting spatiotemporal metadata into the data packets themselves in accordance with the user-configurable permission rules and transmitting the data packets if the step of inspecting the data packets reveals that the data packets are missing spatiotemporal metadata, otherwise conforming existing spatiotemporal metadata with the user-configurable permission rules and transmitting the data packets if the step of inspecting the data packets reveals that spatiotemporal metadata is already present in the data packets themselves,
• wherein the user-configurable permission rules further designate a granularity of spatiotemporal metadata inserted into the data packets depending on one or more of an origin of the data packets, a destination of the data packets, application to which the data packets relate, time, and date, and wherein the steps of inserting and conforming are performed only for application data-carrying packets meant to be processed by end-user applications.