Patent ID: 7506157

Claim:
A method of managing a computer system comprising a plurality of nodes coupled via at least one communication medium, the computer system storing a plurality of digital assets, the method comprising acts of: (A) storing each of the plurality of digital assets via at least one of the plurality of nodes according to a distribution scheme that provides distributed storage of the plurality of digital assets among the plurality of nodes; and (B) managing the distribution of the plurality of digital assets among the plurality of nodes, at least in part, via node-to-node communications among the plurality of nodes, wherein the computer system makes the plurality of digital assets available to at least one client, wherein at least one of the plurality of digital assets comprises content and is identified by the at least one client and the computer system via an identifier that is based, at least in part, on a cryptographic hash of at least some of the content of the at least one of the plurality of digital assets, and wherein the identifier is the only identifier that can be used to identify the digital asset in any communication between the computer system and the at least one client.