XLattice Gateway
XLattice is a library of software supporting peer-to-peer communications. An XLattice network consists of two or more Nodes, Each such Node has a cryptographic identity, meaning that it has secret keys, the public part of which is known to its peers, allowing them to easily establish secure, encrypted communications between them. XLattice Nodes have interfaces to Overlays such as the global Internet.
A Gateway is an XLattice Node which facilitates communcations between Nodes which do not share a common Overlay. Nodes may be for example on different private IP networks or they might route traffic through an unusual protocol such as email (SMTP or they may prefer to route traffic through a public service such as Tor.
A Gateway is not the same as a router, although it may be resident on a router. A Node communicating with an otherwise unreachable Node sends messages through an Internet Protocol (IP) network to the Gateway, which forwards the messages though an address on the remote Overlay to the destination Node. The remote Node will route traffic back in the same manner, usually but not necessarily using the same Gateway.
