Patent ID: 8301769

Claim:
A method for classifying an operating environment of a remote computer, the method comprising: maintaining a list of zones of trust in memory, each zone of trust associated with a set of resources; and executing instructions stored in memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor: selects a zone of trust from the list of zones of trust, wherein the selected zone of trust is defined by a signature comprising one or more literal values concerning a computer state, compares the one or more literal values with a corresponding state of the operating environment of the remote computer, and classifies the operating environment of the remote computer into the selected zone of trust when the one or more literal values are true for the operating environment, wherein classification into the selected zone of trust includes access to the set of resources associated with the selected zone of trust, wherein the list of zones of trust is further associated with a community of one or more users within a realm, the realm including one or more authorized users each associated with a remote computer and an authentication server.