Patent ID: 8726335

Claim:
A method for sharing content between clients at trust levels in a trust hierarchy associated with a network implementing policy-based management, the method comprising: receiving a first request from a first client for delivery of content to the first client at a trust level in the trust hierarchy the trust hierarchy comprising at least two levels of trust allowing access to network resources, each progressively higher level in the trust hierarchy allowing additional access to the network resources, the network resources including at least the electronic content; approving the delivery of content to the first client at a policy enforcement point in the network based at least in part on the trust level of the first client in the trust hierarchy; delivering the content to the first client; receiving a second request for permission from the first client allowing the first client to deliver the content to a second client at a trust level in the trust hierarchy, the second request including integrity information about the second client delivered to the first client from the second client, the trust level of the second client at least as trusted as the trust level of the first client, the integrity information comprising at least one of biometric information associated with the second client and the identification of software installed on the second client; determining whether to allow the first client to deliver the content to the second client based at least in part on the integrity information about the second client and the trust level of the second client; and communicating to the first client the determination of whether the first client may deliver the content to the second client.