Methods and apparatus are disclosed for processing data packets using a router and a proxy in order to transparently proxy a connection between a client and a server. One method involves mapping a TCP connection to a connection ID and sending a segment from the TCP connection to a proxy, including the connection ID, a direction value and an identifier of an assigned proxy application, such that the segment appears to be from the connection. The method further involves a proxy creating and reading from an IP socket which corresponds to the segment, the connection ID, direction and assigned proxy application and then spoofing the segment using the connection ID, a second direction value, and an identifier of the assigned proxy application.