Patent ID: 8601283

Claim:
A method for access control, the method comprising: performing by a storage device that has a non-volatile memory with a partition and contains an account with authentication credentials and further contains permissions: receiving a request to access the partition, the request including a session ID, the session ID being associated with the permissions upon authenticating an entity to the account using the authentication credentials, wherein the storage device stores the permissions prior to receiving a request to authenticate the entity; using the session ID included in the request to look up in the storage device the permissions associated with the session ID; determining whether the permissions authorize the requested access to the partition; and granting the requested access to the partition if the permissions authorize the requested access to the partition; wherein the session ID is sharable among other entities to share access to the partition, and wherein after the entity is authenticated to the account using the authentication credentials, the storage device identifies the other entities by the session ID and not the authentication credentials.