Patent ID: 7904720

Claim:
A method for managing a secure shared resource between a plurality of computing devices in an ad-hoc network, comprising: creating at a first member computing device a first representation of a shared space defined by a first set of one or more data structures for storing information describing one or more shared resources included in the shared space, the first representation being unique to the first member computing device; providing access to a first set of at least one shared resource included in the shared space and accessible to the first member computing device through the first representation to a second member computing device to form a second representation of the shared space unique to the second member computing device, wherein the second member computing device further provides a copy of the second representation to a plurality of member computing devices to form respectively unique representations of the shared space based upon the second representation; hosting at the first member computing device the first set of shared resources associated with the shared space, the first member computing device being trusted by at least one of the second member computing device and the plurality of other member computing devices, the first member computing device providing at least one of the second member computing device and the plurality of other members with the copy of the first representation; and accessing at least one of the second member computing device and the plurality of other member computing devices the first set of the at least one shared resource associated with the shared space and accessible to the second member computing device and the plurality of other member computing devices through their respective copy of the first representation, the at least one shared resource provided to the first representation copies by at least one of the first member computing device, the second member computing device, and a plurality of other member computing devices.