APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS TO REMOTE DIAL-IN NETWORK CLIENTS

A remote user (18) at a remote (12) computer accesses a computer network (14) via a remote access device (16) coupled (directly or indirectly) to the network (14). The remote access device receives from the remote computer a request for an identifier. The request does not include any information that uniquely identifies the remote computer or the user thereat. In response to the request, the remote access device generates a client identifier that uniquely identifies the remote computer and then provides that unique client identifier to the remote computer. The remote access device can generate the unique client identifier by concatenating a hardware-level address associated with the remote access device (e.g., a Medium Access Control or MAC address) and the current date and time. The remote computer can store the unique client identifier for future use, and the remote access device can use the unique client identifier to obtain services available on the computer network. For example, the remote access device can use the unique client identifier to identify uniquely the remote computer to a server on the computer network which dynamically assigns Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in order to obtain an IP address for the remote computer.