Method and apparatus for providing network communication association information to applications and services

摘要

A system and method are provided that allow an application on a first terminal to inquire about available network communication associations that it can use to send data to another terminal, thereby avoiding the establishment of a new network communication association with the other terminal. A security information module may serve to collect and/or store information about available network communication associations between the first terminal and another terminal across different layers. The security information module may also assess a trust level for the network communication associations based on security mechanisms used to establish each association and/or past experience information reported for these network communication associations. Upon receiving a request for available network communication associations, the security information module provides this to the requesting application which can use it to establish communications with a corresponding application on the other terminal.