Patent ID: 7788701

Claim:
A method for restricting an ability of a user to transfer content from within a personal internet communicator comprising: providing the personal internet communicator with non-volatile storage, the non-volatile storage including a system partition and a user partition; storing non-user content within the system partition of the non-volatile storage; storing user data within the user partition of the non-volatile storage; and, configuring an operating system so that a user may not access the non-user content stored within the system partition so as to restrict the ability of the user to transfer content from within the personal internet communicator; and, storing user data within a hidden user data portion of the user partition, the user data stored within the hidden user data portion of the user partition being inaccessible by the user; and wherein the operating system further comprises a shell filter module, the shell filter module controlling access to the user data and the non-user data, the shell filter module being configured to hide the non-user content such that the non-user content is hidden and inaccessible to the user so that there can be no transfer of the non-user content and no inadvertent deletion of the non-user content, the shell filter module comprising a lockdown filter, the lockdown filter preventing the restricted information from being modified by the user; and, when access to the non-user content is desired, the shell filter is capable of being disabled via a utility.