Patent ID: 8505065

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium not consisting of a modulated data signal for programming a processor to perform a method of implementing an access control policy on a weakly-coherent distributed collection, the method comprising the steps of: (a) generating one or more certificates creating one or more access control rights with respect to one or more replicas and items in the weakly-coherent distributed collection, said step (a) of generating one or more certificates including the step of creating one or more namespaces to subdivide the rights associated with different replicas; (b) revoking a certificate of the one or more certificates by a collection manager and/or one or more replicas granted authority to revoke the one or more certificates; (c) preventing conflicting policies within the weakly-coherent distributed collection by preventing modification of the one or more certificates by the collection manager and one or more replicas granted authority to revoke the one or more certificates; and (d) creating a new replica upon revocation of the certificate in said step (b), and recreating the certificate revoked in said step (b) in the new replica, the new replica implementing policy to replace the policy of the revoked certificate.