Electronic Document Management with Box-Level Access Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional electronic document management systems face challenges in securely managing documents with varying confidentiality levels, leading to accidental disclosure of high-confidential information when users with different access rights access the same document, causing inconvenience and potential leaks.
Innovation Solution
An electronic document management device with a storage system that uses multiple boxes with different access rights, where each box can store electronic documents with constituent elements marked as either disclosure-enabled or disclosure-disabled, allowing for selective modification of elements to maintain confidentiality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the entire document is disclosed to users with high access rights, then the user can access all information, but high-confidential information may be accidentally disclosed to users with low access rights
Solution Approach 1:
The document is segmented into multiple constituent elements, each with its own confidential level. The access control system then evaluates each element individually based on the user's access rights, allowing selective disclosure of only those elements for which the user has sufficient clearance. This resolves the contradiction by enabling comprehensive access for authorized users while preventing accidental disclosure of sensitive elements to unauthorized users.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the document (constituent elements) are assigned different confidential levels and access control attributes. This allows the system to provide customized access rights to different parts of the same document, enabling users with high access rights to view the entire document while preventing users with low access rights from viewing sensitive elements, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of access and security.
2Ease of operation
If a worker creates a separate electronic document for each confidential level, then all users can access their respective levels, but it takes a lot of effort and time
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of creating separate documents for each confidential level, the system segments the single document into constituent elements with different confidential attributes. This allows one document to serve multiple user groups simultaneously, eliminating the time-consuming process of creating multiple documents while maintaining full accessibility for all authorized users.
Solution Approach 2:
The single electronic document is designed to be universal, serving multiple functions by accommodating different confidential levels within the same document structure. The access control system enables the document to function differently for different users without requiring separate document creations, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of access and time consumption.
3Adaptability or versatility
If constituent elements with low confidential levels are included in the document, then the document is more useful and accessible, but the overall document confidentiality is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The document is divided into constituent elements with varying confidential levels, allowing the system to maintain high usability by including diverse information types while preserving overall confidentiality through selective access control. Users can access only the elements appropriate to their clearance level, resolving the contradiction between document versatility and confidentiality integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
Different constituent elements are assigned different confidential attributes, enabling the document to simultaneously provide versatile information to appropriate users while maintaining strict confidentiality for sensitive elements. This local differentiation allows the document to be both useful and secure, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic document management device including: an electronic document storage unit that includes a plurality of boxes for storing electronic documents, each box being accessible to a user or a user group having an access right thereto, each of the plurality of boxes storing an electronic document that includes one or more constituent elements, each constituent element being attached with either disclosure-enabled information or disclosure-disabled information depending on a box storing the electronic document; and a modifying unit operable to modify, for each box, each constituent element that is attached with the disclosure-disabled information, so as not to be disclosed.