Apparatuses, methods, and computer readable media are disclosed for group addresses in wireless networks. An apparatus of an access point comprising memory and processing circuitry coupled to the memory is disclosed. The processing circuitry may be configured to: allocate one or more association identification (AIDs) to one or more stations, and allocate a group association identification (GAI) for the one or more stations and associate the GAI with the one or more AIDs. The processing circuitry may be further configured to: encode one or more first packets with the GAI for the one or more stations, and configure the access point to transmit the one or more first packets to the one or more stations. The processing circuitry may be further configured to: encode a second packet with a media access control (MAC) address of the GAI, and transmit the second packet to the one or more stations.

A multicast packet transmission method and an apparatus are provided that relate to the communications field and define how multicast data is sent to stations (STAs) by using a multicast association identifier (AID). The method includes: allocating, by an access point (AP), a corresponding multicast AID to STAs, where the multicast AID is set in a short media access control (MAC) header of a multicast packet; and sending, by the AP, the multicast packet to at least two STAs, so that the at least two STAs determine, according to the multicast AID, whether the multicast packet is a multicast packet corresponding to the at least two STAs, where the at least two STAs are in a same multicast group.

Some embodiments provide a novel method for load balancing data messages that are sent by a source compute node (SCN) to one or more different groups of destination compute nodes (DCNs). In some embodiments, the method deploys a load balancer in the source compute node's egress datapath. This load balancer receives each data message sent from the source compute node, and determines whether the data message is addressed to one of the DCN groups for which the load balancer spreads the data traffic to balance the load across (e.g., data traffic directed to) the DCNs in the group. When the received data message is not addressed to one of the load balanced DCN groups, the load balancer forwards the received data message to its addressed destination. On the other hand, when the received data message is addressed to one of load balancer's DCN groups, the load balancer identifies a DCN in the addressed DCN group that should receive the data message, and directs the data message to the identified DCN. To direct the data message to the identified DCN, the load balancer in some embodiments changes the destination address (e.g., the destination IP address, destination port, destination MAC address, etc.) in the data message from the address of the identified DCN group to the address (e.g., the destination IP address) of the identified DCN.

Provided are methods and devices for acquiring a Media Access Control (MAC) address. According to a method for acquiring an MAC address, an MAC address request message is received, wherein the MAC address request message carries a Fibre Channel Identifier (FCID); whether the FCID is matched with an FCID of a receiver receiving the MAC address request message or not is judged; and when it is judged that the FCID is matched with the FCID of the receiver receiving the MAC address request message, the receiver sends a response message, wherein the response message carries an MAC address of the receiver. The technical solution solves the problem in a related technology that communication cannot be directly performed through the link layer, and has the effect of directly acquiring an MAC address corresponding to an FCID of an opposite end so as to perform communication by fast switching at the link layer.

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for many-to-one communications in a network. In use, a first single device subscribes to receive communication from a first network address associated therewith, the first network address being an address other than a network address of the first single device. Further, a plurality of devices communicate information to the first network address associated with the first single device. Responsive to communicating the information by the plurality of devices to the first network address, the information is forwarded to the first single device.

A system and method are described for securing a network-connected device from a hacker having access to a network to which the network-connected device is communicatively connected. Such network-connected devices include a variety of electronics that when connected to the Internet are commonly referred to as the Internet of things (“IoT”). The systems and methods described herein include a transparent traffic control (TTC) device that is installed between an IoT device and a communications network to intercept data packets transmitted between the IoT device and the network and to allow or block the data packets based on rules for a group to which the IoT device or a remote destination are assigned.

The technology disclosed relates to resolution of conflicts between a requested internet service, requested by an internet service requesting server, and a package internet services. The method disclosed includes sending a conflict check result message to an internet service requesting server, indicating a presence of a conflict between a requested internet service requested by the requesting server and a package of internet services. The method includes receiving from the internet service requesting server a response including a selection from (i) an alternate internet service in the package of internet services to substitute for the requested internet service; (ii) a request to replace an existing connection with a service in the package of internet services with the requested internet service; and (iii) a request to initiate a custom resolution application. The method then responsively performs a respective conflict resolution step.

Technologies directed to a secured peer-to-peer cloud-assisted authentication exchange protocol are described. A first wireless device receives a first request including information identifying a second wireless device. The first wireless device determines that the information matches second information. The first wireless device activates a virtual access point (VAP) with a modified service set identifier (SSID) having a group identifier appended to a first SSID. The first wireless device authenticates the second wireless device to the VAP. The first wireless device sends credentials and a second SSID to the second wireless device. The second SSID corresponds to a second access point (AP). The first wireless device receives a second request from the second wireless device to connect to the second AP. The first wireless device authenticates the second wireless device with the second AP. The first wireless device deactivates the VAP after expiration of an amount of time.

A communication method and a switch device for one-way transmission based on VLAN ID are provided. The communication method includes: receiving, by a first port of a switch, a first data packet from a first external device; packing the first data packet with a first VLAN ID corresponding to a first path to generate a second data packet; receiving, by a first PLD, the second data packet from a third port of the switch; filtering, by the first PLD, the second data packet according to a first filtering rule; in response to the second data packet being matched with the first filtering rule, overwriting the first VLAN ID by a second VLAN ID corresponding to a second path to generate a third data packet; and transmitting, by the first PLD, the third data packet to a second port of the switch via the second path.

A more efficient method of data collecting using multicast instead of individual slave-by-slave requests for data defines a multicast address through a master station. Slave stations are divided into feature groups according to their feature value and a mapping relationship table between the multicast addresses and the feature groups is established. Data request frames from the master station to the slave stations include a destination address which is parsed by all the slave stations, and if the destination address is the same as the multicast address in the mapping relationship table, the slave stations in the feature group associated with the destination address transmit data in response to the master station, the data request being discarded by other slave stations which are not associated.