Socially Enhanced Network Address Translation

The rapid evolution of the Internet has forced the use of Network Address Translation (NAT) to help slow the decline of publicly available IPv4 address space. While NAT provides the requisite address space as well as privacy and security to its users, it also eliminates the ability to establish incoming connections to devices within a private network.To address this issue, we propose combining social network topologies with traditional NAT architecture to better integrate peer-to-peer communication through NATed networks. This socially enhanced NAT allows incoming connections from trusted parties, resolving one of the central criticisms of the NAT approach.