Patent attributes
Techniques for using Network Address Translation (NAT), Mobile Internet Protocol (MIP), and/or other techniques in conjunction with Domain Name System (DNS) to anonymize server-side addresses in data communications. Rather than having DNS provide a client device with an IP address of an endpoint device, such as a server, the DNS instead returns a virtual IP (VIP) address that is mapped to the client device and the endpoint device. In this way, IP addresses of servers are obfuscated by a virtual network of VIP addresses. The client device may then communicate data packets to the server using the VIP address as the destination address, and a virtual network service that works in conjunction with DNS can convert the VIP address to the actual IP address of the server using NAT and forward the data packet onto the server.