Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Other

Alexander Burba

Brandon T Hunt

Frank R Morrison, Iii

Nima Ganjeh

Michael Gallop

Mehmet Akkurt

Mark James McNulty

Ivan Petrov Trindev

Scott Rosemund

Matthew Wan

John Raymond Justice

Yuval Gross

Zerelina R Mukherjee

Frank Morrison

Andy Hickmott

Frank R Morrison

Chad Gibson

Krassimir Emilov Karamfilov

Thomas Charles Butcher

Ismet Erensoy Kahraman

Nicole Simone DesRosiers

Mark J Mcnulty

Frank R Iii Morrison

Michael J Gallop

Example apparatus and methods facilitate providing an incremental future-proof license to a master stream of content. The master stream may be related to different instances of content (e.g., different versions) for which there is a unified content representation. A request for content available through the master stream may be received from a licensee. The request may include an explicit indication of which stream of frames is to be accessed or may include implicit information from which a stream of frames may be selected. The selected stream may be changed midstream in response to changing conditions (e.g., bandwidth), events (e.g., gesture), devices (e.g., licensee accesses different device) or explicit requests. As the available streams of frames associated with the content changes, the changes may be mapped to the master stream and made available to the licensee. The licensee may pay an incremental license fee for access to updated content.

Unified content representation

A message-limiting mechanism for enabling computing devices to self-organize into groups based on network proximity can entail the transmission of values based on hierarchical evaluation such that only a computing device having a most extreme value continues to transmit. The values utilized can be randomly generated and their broadcast can facilitate the identification of computing devices that are proximate, by network distance. Each computing device can retain a most extreme value received, unless a value generated by that computing device itself is more extreme, in which case the computing device can continue periodic broadcasts of its value. Each computing device can report its retained values, or its own value if no values were retained, and groupings can be generated based on the values reported by the computing devices. The grouping of computing devices can then facilitate the identification of peers, including for purposes of downloading content from such peers.

Message-limited self-organizing network groups for computing device peer matching

Achieving certificate pinning security in reduced trust networks. A client receives a second certificate from a server over a first secured communications channel. The first secured communications channel is established based at least upon a first digital certificate associated with the first secured communications channel being certified by a pinned certificate. The client sends a request towards the server via a second communications channel with an untrusted computer system, and the request is received by the server. The server generates a response comprising a timestamp, a URI portion, and a signature that is generated using the second certificate. The server sends the response via the second communications channel. The client receives the response, and uses the second certificate to verify that the response is authentic and that the timestamp and URI portion are valid. The client then processes the payload.

Achieving certificate pinning security in reduced trust networks

Achieving certificate pinning security in reduced trust networks. A client establishes a first communications channel with a server only upon verifying that a first certificate offered by the server is certified by a pinned certificate. The client receives a second certificate from the server over the first communications channel. The server and the client establish second communications channels with an untrusted computer system. The client sends a request towards the server via the second communications channels, and the request is received by the server. The server generates a response comprising a payload, a timestamp, a URI portion, and a signature that is generated using the second certificate, and sends the response via the second communications channels. The client receives the response and uses the second certificate to verify that the response is authentic and that the timestamp and URI portion are valid. The client then processes the payload.

A method for transferring digital content items in a peer-to-peer network in which a plurality of nodes participate includes receiving requests for receipt of one or more digital content items from a plurality of requesting nodes belonging to the peer-to-peer network. A capacity of the requesting nodes to upload data is assessed. Network resources available to the peer-to-peer network for delivering the digital content items or chunks thereof to the receiving nodes are allocated based at least in part on the capacity of the requesting nodes to upload data. The digital content items or chunks thereof are sent to the requesting nodes over the peer-to-peer network in accordance with the network resources that are allocated to each of the requesting nodes.

Peer-to-peer network prioritizing propagation of objects through the network

The techniques and systems described herein implement an improved peer matching service by coordinating peer matching requests across multiple peer matching nodes configured within a peer matching unit so that resource consumption can be spread out and resource limitations are not exceeded. Moreover, the peer matching service can determine if a peer matching unit is overloaded (e.g., experiencing an increased number of requests in a given time interval that is causing performance degradation), and the peer matching service can implement an action to scale out the number of requests within the peer matching unit (e.g., re-distribute some peer matching requests to another peer matching unit). In various examples, the peer matching service can determine if peer devices are co-located peer devices based on location information and can generate a list that prioritizes the co-located peer devices.

Scalable peer matching

In one example, a peer-to-peer network may use partial seeding to increase the number of seed devices available to a peer device acting as a leeching device. A catalog service may maintain an active peer list for a peer-to-peer network describing active peer devices. The catalog service may track a data file composed of a set of sub-pieces for the peer-to-peer network. The catalog service may identify a device constraint for a peer device of the peer-to-peer network describing a characteristic of the peer device impacting an ability of the peer device to store a sub-piece of the data file. The catalog service may assign a seed sub-piece of the data file based on the device constraint to the peer device when executing a seed client to provide the seed sub-piece to a leeching client on the peer-to-peer network. The catalog service may direct the peer device to retain a persistent sub-piece on the peer device as the seed sub-piece for the peer device until a release event.

Constraint based controlled seeding

In some embodiments, a peer matching service classifies client devices into a bucket where similar network identification information is received from the client devices and is associated with an access point to which the client devices are connected to transfer content via a peer to peer transfer. The service determines whether to transition the bucket from a first operating mode into a contention management mode based on a status of client devices in the bucket. The status is based on a connection type for the client devices. When the bucket is transitioned into the contention management mode, the service applies instructions associated with the contention management mode to characteristics associated with the client devices to determine a restriction for peer to peer transfer of the content and communicates with the client devices to apply the restriction to the peer to peer transfer of the content through the access point.

Contention management in communication networks

Described are examples for indicating a local group identifier for peer-to-peer communications. A generated identifier can be broadcasted, by a device, to multiple other devices accessible in a network. Multiple broadcasted identifiers can also be received, by the device, from at least a portion of the multiple devices in the network. The device can determine the local group identifier based on the generated identifier and one or more of the multiple broadcasted identifiers. The device can report the local group identifier to a peer matching service to facilitate grouping the device with at least the portion of the multiple devices in the network for peer-to-peer communications.

Techniques for peer matching in peer-to-peer communications

Obligatorily-acquired digital content items are stored under service control in one or more local storage machines of a computer based on service commands provided by a centralized management service; and voluntarily-acquired digital content items are stored under user control in the one or more local storage machines of the computer based on user commands. The obligatorily-acquired digital content items are protected from user-commanded deletion. The obligatorily-acquired digital content items are deleted from the one or more local storage machines based on service commands provided by the centralized management service. However, the voluntarily-acquired digital content items are deleted from the one or more local storage machines based on user commands.

Content distribution storage management

Localizing network traffic using network topology is provided. A request for content is received from a first peer of a peer-to-peer (P2P) network having a plurality of peers. In response to receiving a request for content, one or more peers to receive the requested content in the P2P network are determined. One or more nodes in a trace route from the first peer to a predetermined address that are common to the trace route from the one or more peers to the predetermined address are determined. The one or more common nodes are ordered by hops from the first peer. At least one peer is selected from the ordered one or more common nodes to recommend to the first peer. The selected at least one peer is recommended to the first peer. The first peer then connects with the recommended at least one peer and receive the content.

Localizing traffic using network topology

Implementations disclosed herein can be used to improve the distribution of digital content in a peer-to-peer network. In certain embodiments, computing devices are mapped into different groups based on location information, and inter-group information, including historical inter-group information associated with at least one of inter-group data transfer rate information and inter-group availability information, is accessed and used to identify a first group of computing devices to send download requests for digital content, wherein the first group includes a first number of idle and available computer devices greater than a number of idle and available computer devices of another group of the computing devices. The download request for the digital content is effected or recommended to be sent from a second computing device mapped to a second group of the computing devices to a first computing device mapped to the first group.

Improving peer-to-peer network performance through coordination of digital content distribution

In some embodiments, a verification service receives a description for a combination of a set of ranges within content available for download. The set of ranges are not sequentially located in the content that a client device has downloaded. The verification service determines if a first portion of the combination of the set of ranges has been received in a prior request. When the first portion has been received, the verification service retrieves a first set of verification values that represent subsets of content corresponding to the first portion. When at least a second portion of the combination of the set of ranges has not been received, the verification service generates a second set of verification values using subsets of content corresponding to the second portion. One or more of the first set of verification values and the second set of verification values are sent to the client device.

Verification of downloaded subsets of content

A dataset comprising a plurality of byte ranges is identified. A tree structure is created that represents different subsets of these byte ranges. The tree structure comprises a plurality of nodes that is each associated with a different subset of the byte ranges. These nodes are hierarchically-arranged, such that byte ranges associated with each child node are a subset of byte ranges associated with each parent node. One or more of the byte ranges are identified for each client of a plurality of clients. These are range(s) that the client needs to obtain. Each client is associated with one of the nodes of the tree structure that is, itself, associated with byte ranges that match the byte ranges that the client needs to obtain. Client peers are identified based on based on traversing the tree structure from a node associated with one client to a node associated with a peer.

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Alexander Burba