Systems and methods for providing categorization based authorization of digital assets
Systems and methods for managing digital assets in a distributed computing environment are described. Meta-data for the digital assets is stored separately from the digital assets. Meta-data for some of the digital assets is copied and stored at a central location. Meta-data for the digital assets is generated by clients of the system.
1 . A method of providing access to a digital asset of a distributed computing environment, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally stores respective digital assets, the method comprising:
(a) receiving a request from a user for access to a digital asset;
(b) determining a categorization associated with the digital asset;
(c) evaluating a rule associated with the categorization of the digital asset to generate a result; and
(d) providing access to the digital asset when the result indicates that the end-user is allowed to access the digital asset.
2 . The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of steps (a), (b), and (c) is performed at the client.
3 . The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of steps (a), (b) and (c) is performed by the central computing device.
4 . The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving, at a client, the rule associated with the categorization from the central computing device.
5 . The method of claim 1 wherein step (a) is performed by a filter driver.
6 . The method of claim 1 wherein providing access comprises performing an operation on the digital asset selected from the group consisting of: reading, writing, deleting, copying, moving, transmitting, transferring, and renaming.
7 . A system for providing access to digital assets of a distributed computing environment, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally stores respective digital assets, the system comprising:
a computing device that receives a request from a user for access to digital assets, determines a categorization associated with the digital asset, evaluates a rule associated with the categorization of the digital asset to generate a result, and provide access to the digital asset when the result indicates that the end-user is allowed to access the digital asset.
8 . The system of claim 7 wherein the computing device is the client of the distributed computing environment.
9 . The system of claim 7 wherein the computing device is the server of the distributed computing environment.
10 . The system of claim 7 wherein the server of the distributed computing environment transmits the rule associated with the categorization to the computing device.
11 . The system of claim 7 wherein the computing device comprises a filter driver.
12 . The system of claim 7 wherein the computing device provides access by performing an operation on the digital asset selected from the group consisting of: reading, writing, deleting, copying, moving, transmitting, transferring, and renaming
13 . A computer readable medium having executable instructions thereon to provide access to a digital asset of a distributed computing environment, the environment having a central computing device that stores an asset identification tag for at least one digital asset and one or more clients that locally stores respective digital assets, the computer readable medium comprising:
(a) instructions to receive a request from a user for access to a digital asset;
(b) instructions to determine a categorization associated with the digital asset;
(c) instructions to evaluate a rule associated with the categorization of the digital asset to generate a result; and
(d) instructions to provide access to the digital asset when the result indicates that the end-user is allowed to access the digital asset.
14 . The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the execution of steps (a), (b), and (c) is performed at a client of the distributed computing environment.
15 . The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the execution of steps (a), (b), and (c) is performed at the server of the distributed computing environment.
16 . The computer readable medium of claim 13 further comprising instructions to receive, at a client of the distributed computing environment, the rule associated with the categorization from the central computing device.
17 . The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the instructions to receive a request is performed by a filter driver.
18 . The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the instructions to provide access comprises instructions to perform an operation on the digital asset selected from the group consisting of: reading, writing, deleting, copying, moving, transmitting, transferring, and renaming.