Abstract: A method for detecting whether a socket request is directed to a TOE adapter or a generic network adapter is provided. Specifically a set of driver entry points are inserted into a system trap table of an operating system whereby the driver entry points are pointers to driver socket function that replace the original socket functions. The driver socket functions intercept and snoop all socket requests including I/O requests to and from sockets. If the driver socket function determines that the structure of the socket requests contains an encoded pointer, the socket request is passed to TOE hardware for processing. If, however, the driver socket function determines that the structure of the socket requests lacks an embedded pointer, the socket request is passed to generic hardware for processing.