Defining access rights to content

• US 9,654,285 B2
• Filed: 04/27/2009
• Issued: 05/16/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: O'Sullivan, Patrick Joseph, Kristiansen, Morten, Srikanth, Hema, O'Flynn, Timothy Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Leung, Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ho, Thomas
• Application Number:
  US12/430,372
• Publication Number:
  US 20100275021A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,941 Days
• Field of Search: 713150, 713163, 713166
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/603 Digital right managament [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0836 using tree structure or hierarchical structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/088 Usage controlling of secret information, e.g. techniques for restricting cryptographic keys to pre-authorized uses, different access levels, validity of crypto-period, different key- or password length, or different strong and weak cryptographic algorithms network architectures or network communication protocols for using time-dependent keys in a packet data network H04L63/068

Abstract

A portion of text associated with a message intended for a group of recipients is encrypted at a computing device. The portion of text may include less than an entirety of the message. Access to the portion of text may be restricted for a first subset of the group of recipients and allowed for a second subset of the group of recipients.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

encrypting, at a computing device, a portion of text associated with a message intended for a group of recipients, wherein the portion of text includes less than an entirety of the message;

restricting access to the portion of text for a first subset of the group of recipients of the message; and

allowing access to the portion of text to a second subset of the group of recipients of the message, wherein

the message includes a textual secondary message indicating that the portion of text has been encrypted.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the computing device is associated with a composer of the message.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 wherein at least one of restricting and allowing is determined by the computing device prior to transmission of the message.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the message is at least one of an email message and a calendar invitation.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the group of recipients is associated with at least one of an organizational hierarchy and a social network.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein encrypting is performed using a public key and defining access rights includes providing a private key to the subset of the group of recipients.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein encrypting the portion of text is performed by at least one of a server-side device and a client-side device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein

the textual secondary messages identifies members of the first subset of the group.

9. A computer program product, comprising:

a computer readable hardware storage device having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer-readable program code configured to encrypt a portion of text associated with a message intended for a group of recipients, the portion of text including less than an entirety of the message;

computer-readable program code configured to restrict access to the portion of text for a first subset of the group of recipients of the message; and

computer-readable program code configured to allow access to the portion of text to a second subset of the group of recipients of the message, wherein

the message includes a textual secondary message indicating that the portion of text has been encrypted.

10. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein the computing device is associated with a composer of the message.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein at least one of restricting and allowing is determined by the computing device prior to transmission of the message.

12. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein the message is at least one of an email message and a calendar invitation.

13. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein the group of recipients is associated with at least one of an organizational hierarchy and a social network.

14. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein encrypting is performed using a public key and defining access rights includes providing a private key to the subset of the group of recipients.

15. The computer program product of claim 9 wherein encrypting the portion of text is performed by at least one of a server-side device and a client-side device.

16. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein

the textual secondary messages identifies members of the first subset of the group.

17. A computing system comprising:

at least one processor;

at least one memory architecture coupled with the at least one processor;

a first software module executed on the at least one processor and the at least one memory architecture, wherein the first software module is configured to encrypt a portion of text associated with a message intended for a group of recipients, the portion of text including less than an entirety of the message;

a second software module executed on the at least one processor and the at least one memory architecture, wherein the second software module is configured to restrict access to the portion of text for a first subset of the group of recipients of the message; and

a third software module executed on the at least one processor and the at least one memory architecture, wherein the third software module is configured to allow access to the portion of text to a second subset of the group of recipients of the message, wherein

the message includes a textual secondary message indicating that the portion of text has been encrypted.

18. The computing system of claim 17 wherein the group of recipients is associated with at least one of an organizational hierarchy and a social network.

19. The computing system of claim 17 further comprising indicating to at least one of the group of recipients that the portion of text associated with the message has been encrypted.

20. The computing system of claim 17 wherein

the textual secondary messages identifies members of the first subset of the group.