Apple Inc.
APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR EMBEDDING SECURITY ASSOCIATION IDENTIFIER IN IP ADDRESS

Abstract:

An electronic device includes an address generator module that generates a source address for each traffic class to be sent using a network interface. The source address includes a Unique Local Address (ULA) prefix and an interface identifier having a traffic class identifier as one or more most significant bits and a randomly generated remainder. The address generator module generates a destination address having the ULA prefix and the traffic class identifier. When a processor of the electronic device is selecting a source address for the traffic class according to rules of a network layer protocol (e.g., IPv6), including a rule that a longest matching address of possible source addresses to the given destination is selected as the source address, the generated source address is selected due to the one or more most significant bits of the interface identifier matching with the traffic class identifier of the destination address.