Non-unique names for broadcast messages

The present disclosure concerns a method for allowing for adoption of names either on a unique basis (association of the name with one and only one entity) or a non-unique basis (association of one name to plural entities), in a data communication system that allows communicating processors to act without reliance on a common directory to adopt logical names for respective locally attached entities (programs, data files, human operators, etc.), and to initiate sessions relative to remote entities by means of communications directed to respective entity names (rather than addresses associated with the physical locations of respective entities). Names adopted on a non-unique basis are flagged as such in the adopting system, and name checking communications directed to such names are ignored by processors serving the respective entity (thereby allowing the checking processors to adopt the respective non-unique name, using the existing procedure for adopting unique names, and thereby enabling processors serving a group of entities to adopt a common name for directing network communications to the entire group concurrently). The disclosure describes specific communication applications made possible by this non-unique naming capability. (Fig. 6)