Patent ID: 8332951

Claim:
A method for securing content of a surface-based computing device comprising: identifying a plurality of delineated input/output regions of a surface of a surface-based computing device referred to as sections, wherein said surface is configured for concurrent usage by a plurality of different human beings, each utilizing a person-specific section of the surface to concurrently input/output content from the surface, wherein each of the sections is a computing space owned by a user referred to as a section owner, wherein other regions of the surface exist that are computing spaces distinct from each person-specific section, wherein each person-specific section and computing space is a virtual machine, wherein said virtual machine has its own operating system instance distinct from any operating system instance used by any of the other regions, wherein each section has a corresponding protected storage space within which files are stored, wherein users interact with the stored files through the corresponding section of a user interface of the surface based computing device, wherein inputs into each of the sections are processed by the surface-based computing device as coming from a corresponding user of the person-specific section, wherein the inputs result from touches to the surface of the surface-based computing device and not from an external mechanism linked to the surface-based computing device; establishing a plurality of person-specific section specific settings configurable by the corresponding section owners, wherein said person-specific section specific settings apply to the files stored in the corresponding protected storage space, wherein one or more of the person-specific section specific settings prevents/permits a specific type of the files from being conveyed across a person-specific section specific boundary, said specific types of files of the person-specific section specific settings comprising at least: an image type, a video type, an audio type, and an application type for the files; identifying an attempt by a user of the surface based computing device to access or manipulate one of the files of the protected storage space, wherein said attempt comprises a user interaction within the user interface that attempts to convey at least one software object representing one of the files across the person-specific section boundary separating said person-specific section from at least one of said other regions; and applying said person-specific section specific settings to the attempt to determine whether file-based permissions associated with the one file permit or disallow the attempted action and taking appropriate programmatic actions permitting or disallowing the attempted manipulation of the one file of the protected storage space in response to the attempt.