Patent ID: 7363508

Claim:
A system comprising: a computer system coupled to a network; a first component coupled to the network; and a security system coupled to the network; wherein the computer system comprises: a discovery mechanism which discovers one or more components which are present on the network; and obtains one or more proxy objects from discovered components, wherein a proxy object for a component indicates types of data which the component can receive and understand and one or more data-type-handler interfaces which the component can accept and execute; and wherein the first component comprises an interface system that communicates with a data type handler object and accesses at least one interface provided by the data type handler object, wherein the data type handler object is a software object that includes mobile code for handling at least one type of data that otherwise cannot be read or understood by the first component, and wherein the interface system implements at least one data transfer security mechanism; wherein the security system accesses the interface provided by the data type handler object to obtain a data transfer security mechanism and implements the data transfer security mechanism; and wherein the data type handler object employed by the interface system on the first component is employed as a function of data type and security that is applied to the data type by the data transfer security mechanism.