US 12,438,854 B2
Communicating securely between network nodes
Jeffrey Jay Johnson, Logan, UT (US); and Robert Foster Houghton, Pocatello, ID (US)
Assigned to Utah State University, Logan, UT (US)
Filed by Jeffrey Jay Johnson, Logan, UT (US); and Robert Foster Houghton, Pocatello, ID (US)
Filed on May 2, 2024, as Appl. No. 18/653,582.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/463,828, filed on May 3, 2023.
Prior Publication US 2024/0372839 A1, Nov. 7, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04L 67/141 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 63/0428 (2013.01) [H04L 67/141 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
transmitting, by use of a processor, a port knock sequence comprising ordered empty protocol packets from an origination node to a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of a destination node, wherein the origination node comprises an origination IP address, the destination IP address comprises a destination port number, and the port knock sequence encodes at least one vocabulary phrase;
transmitting the length of the at least one vocabulary phrase from the origination node to a first helper node;
transmitting the length of the at least one vocabulary phrase from the destination node to a second helper node;
generating a corresponding substitute phrase for each at least one vocabulary phrase through communication between the first helper node and the second helper node;
receiving the corresponding substitute phrase for each at least one vocabulary phrase from the first helper node at the origination node;
receiving the corresponding substitute phrase for each at least one vocabulary phrase from the second helper node at the destination node;
generating a node nonce based on the at least one corresponding substitute phrase at the origination node and based on the at least one corresponding substitute phrase at the destination node; and
securely communicating between the origination node and the destination node using the node nonce.