1

A machine-implemented method, comprising:receiving an electronic address for a resource from a principal;

resolving a resource identity for the resource and a principal identity for the principal;

determining a set of patterns that the electronic address can be represented as in response to at least one of the resource identity and the principal identity;

attempting to match the electronic address against the set of patterns when policy dictates;

normalizing the electronic address in response to a matched pattern into a normalized address; and

enforcing one or more actions against the principal before directing the principal to the resource for access in response to the normalized address.

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2

The method of Claim 1, wherein receiving further includes receiving the electronic address via a WWW browser in response to a principal supplied or activated link, within the WWW browser, representing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link or Universal Resource Identifier (URI) link.

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3

The method of Claim 1, wherein receiving further includes receiving the electronic address in response to a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) command or a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) command issued from the principal to access the resource.

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4

The method of Claim 1, wherein resolving further includes consulting an remote identity service to supply authentication services or identity-resolution services for resolving the resource identity and the principal identity.

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5

The method of Claim 1, wherein determining further includes accessing a pattern repository with at least one of the resource identity and the principal identity to acquire the set of patterns.

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6

The method of Claim 1, wherein attempting further includes bypassing the matching when the policy permits for the principal and in response to the principal identity for the principal and considering the principal supplied electronic address to be matched and the normalized address.

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7

The method of Claim 1, wherein attempting further includes bypassing the matching when the policy permits for the resource and in response to the resource identity and considering the principal supplied electronic address to be matched and the normalized address.

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8

A machine-implemented method, comprising:acquiring an address pattern for referencing a resource, wherein the address pattern is tied to and associated with a principal identity for a principal;

matching the address pattern to an electronic address supplied by the principal, wherein the principal is attempting to access the resource and the matching to the address pattern occurs in response the principal identity;

normalizing the electronic address to a normalized address for the resource; and

routing the principal to the resource via the normalized address.

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9

The method of Claim 8, wherein acquiring further includes interacting with an administrator via a graphical user interface to receive the address pattern as a regular expression that defines the address pattern.

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10

The method of Claim 9 further comprising, dynamically updating a repository of patterns with the address pattern when the administrator commits the address pattern for update.

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