Patent ID: 8661003

Claim:
A method utilizing at least a computer processor for managing information comprising: providing a plurality of rules and a plurality of abstractions, wherein each of the plurality of abstractions represents at least one of a class of entities or a class of actions having a role in managing of the information and each of the plurality of abstractions has a corresponding definition statement stored separately from the plurality of rules, and each of the plurality of rules comprises an expression having a variable; determining a subset of the plurality of rules and abstractions relevant to a first target; modifying the subset of rules and abstractions to create a modified subset of rules and abstractions, wherein the modifying comprises: determining a first rule in the subset of rules and abstractions including first and second comparison operations, wherein the first comparison operation is associated with a string and the second comparison operation is associated with an integer, and the first comparison operation is evaluated before the second comparison operation; and modifying the first rule in the subset of rules and abstractions to create a modified first rule, wherein when evaluating the modified first rule, the second comparison is evaluated before the first comparison, the subset of rules and abstractions is evaluated to generate a first set of results based on the first target and each result of the first set of results comprises an allow or deny decision, and the modified subset of rules and abstractions is evaluated to generate a second set of results based on the first target wherein each result of the second set of results has a corresponding allow or deny decision from the first set of results; associating the modified subset of rules and abstractions with the first target; and for the first target, controlling access to the information based on the modified first rule of the modified subset of rules and abstractions, wherein the controlling comprises evaluating the second comparison operation but not the first comparison operation.