Patent ID: 7921288

Claim:
A method for controlling access to a secured item, the secured item having at least a first portion and a second portion, both the first portion and the second portion being encrypted, said method comprising: receiving, by one or more computing devices, a request to access the secured item, the request being from a user at a client machine; authenticating at least the user and the client machine; retrieving a user key from a storage location, the storage location-corresponding to a level of security of the user key; decrypting, the first portion of the secured item with the user key to acquire security information for the secured item that the user is requesting to access; obtaining access rules associated with the secured item and access privileges associated with the user from the decrypted first portion of the secured item; and determining user permission to gain access to the secured item by comparing the access privileges of the user to the access rules of the secured item.