×

Method and apparatus for protecting material on storage media and for transferring material on storage media to various recipients

  • US 5,191,611 A
  • Filed: 01/18/1991
  • Issued: 03/02/1993
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/03/1989
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A security system for granting user entities access, according to their uniquely assigned privileges, to material stored in logical zones on any form of storage medium, and to permit user entities to manage, operate upon and communicate, as enabled by those assigned privileges, both secure and selective materials in said logical zones provided by one or more storage entities, said system comprising:

  • a wired or wireless communications network provided with two or more nodes, at each of which node an operation or procedure can be performed;

    at least two computer processing and storage entities containing storage medium or media, each of said computer processing and storage entities connected to said communications network;

    said storage entities containing storage medium or media allowing erasable or non-erasable formatting and recording with stored material into a plurality of information storage and retrieval and management control and user entity material logical zones, each of said logical zones provided with particular material therein, said storage medium or media directly provided thereon with an access management control means for indicating which of said user logical zone or zones on any of said storage medium or media the user entity will be allowed to access and perform the selective privileged operations of reading, writing, replacing, deleting, modifying and communicating based upon access request information provided to the system by the user, said access management control means provided in each said storage medium or media at a location remote from, and non-contiguous with, said user logical zones;

    means in each storage entity for selectively reading material provided in said plurality of logical zones as well as material provided in said access management control means of said storage medium or media or for selectively creating, modifying or deleting logical zones and selectively reading, writing, replacing, deleting and modifying the content of material provided in said plurality of logical zones as well as material provided in said access management control means of said storage medium or media;

    a personal accessing device;

    a means for providing an interface coupling for exchanging information between said personal accessing device and at least one of said computer processing and storage entities, said personal accessing device containing a security identification code to enable said personal accessing device to be in communication with any of said computer processing and storage entities for transmitting said security identification code to said computer processing and storage entities;

    a means for disabling said personal accessing device if an incorrect personal identification code is entered more than a predetermined amount of times;

    wherein said security identification code is compared or operated upon in any of said computer processing and storage entities to said access management control means provided on said storage medium or media to determine the particular user logical zone or zones to which the user is allowed access and other privileged operations.

View all claims
  • 4 Assignments
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×