A DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM TO INTELLIGENTLY ESTABLISH SESSIONS BETWEEN ANONYMOUS USERS OVER VARIOUS NETWORKS

摘要

A network provides users with a simple and secure way of establishingcommunication sessions with other users or services, running either over IPnetworks or other networks, e.g., PSTN. A plurality of different clusters ofservers is provided, and each of the clusters may be linked together. Usersare registered within some specific cluster and given a unique system/networkID. Messages are not sent directly between users, but instead through at leastone intermediate routing service (RS) provided on a server of one of theusers. Thus a user may hide or mask his/her personal information from otherusers even when communicating with them. A user may establish a communicationsession with another user without knowledge of the client device (e.g., PC,mobile phone, etc.) being used by the other user, as the network arranges forcommunication (e.g., text chat session, voice chat session, web conference, orpages between the users regardless of the client device being used by thecalled user. The initiating user need not know whether the other user iscurrently online via his/her PC or may instead be reached via pager or mobilephone.