Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Bhalchandra Pandit

James W Truher

Jeffrey P Snover

Jeffrey Bruce Parham

Bruce Gordon Payette

Murli D Satagopan

Graham Arthur Wheeler

Mark Robbin Brown

Xiong Zhang

Danny B Lange

Hung-Chih Yang

Robert P Reichel

Jason J Joyce

Maximilian Aigner

David M Moore

Paul J Leach

Scott Field

Richard Bruce Ward

Praerit Garg

John E Brezak

Bassam Tabbara

Kedarnath Atmaram Dubhashi

Jeffrey B Hamblin

Edward Scott Miller

Bradford Daniels

Jonathan S Newman

A system includes a processing device configured to execute instructions including accessing messages sent by a first user and other users. The instructions include identifying a first subset of messages that were sent by the first user and identifying a second subset of messages that are related to a first topic and were sent by the first user. The instructions include determining an authority value based on counts of the first and second subsets. The instructions include identifying a third subset of messages that resulted from the other users forwarding the second subset. The instructions include determining a power value based on a count of users that sent the third subset and computing an impact score for the first user on the first topic based on the authority and power values. The instructions include, based on the impact score, contacting the first user in relation to the first topic.

Computer system for automated assessment at scale of topic-specific social media impact

This patent relates to a system for identifying influential users of a social network platform. The system may access records of messages sent or received by a plurality of users. The system can determine a power of a user to reach other users based at least in part on the messages. The system can determine an authority of the user on a topic. The system can also compute an impact score that reflects both the power and the authority of the user on the topic. Such scores may be used to select users based on impact as part of social trend analysis, marketing or other functions.

Social media impact assessment

A system for identifying influential users of a social network platform. The system may compute a score for each of multiple users. Such a score may be topic-based, leading to a more accurate identification of influential users. Such a topic-based score may indicate authority and/or impact of a user with respect to a topic. The impact may be computed based on authority combined with other factors, such as power of the user. The authority score may be simply computed, in whole or in part, directly from a tweet log without, for example creating a retweet graph. As a result, the scores may be computed, using MapReduce primitives or other constructs that allow the computations to be distributed across multiple parallel processors. Such scores may be used to select users based on impact as part of social trend analysis, marketing or other functions.

Embodiments described herein are directed to providing scalability to software applications. A computer system partitions a portion of data stored in a directory services system into multiple different data partitions. Each data partition includes a primary writable copy and at least one secondary read-only copy of the data. The computer system receives a client request for a portion of the data that is stored in the directory services system and accesses various stored partition mappings to determine which of the different data partitions includes the requested data. The computer system also accesses a dynamic copy locator to determine which of the read-only copies of the indicated partition to access and provide the accessed primary writeable copy of the indicated partition and the determined read-only copy to the client in a virtualized manner so that the client is not aware of the data partitions.

Cloud scale directory services

Automatic allocation of data replicas

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for processing identity constraints in a relational database. Values are extracted from an XML document during a submit operation. References that potentially participate in an identity constraint are identified. The reference information is stored. An identity constraint graph is generated from the stored reference information. Techniques for facilitating key-sequence comparisons are described. Techniques for identifying violations to identity constraints are described. Techniques for identifying which identity constraint graphs are affected by a new or changed document are described.

Processing identity constraints in a data store

Storing events to enhance intrusion detection in networks is described. In one exemplary implementation, an event is received. The event includes a data section containing a set of strings each having an event field. A definition table is referenced to determine locations of event fields in the data section of the event. The event fields are stored in a database record corresponding to event field locations referenced from the definition table.

System and method for storing events to enhance intrusion detection

Improved intrusion detection and/or tracking methods and systems are provided for use across various computing devices and networks. Certain methods, for example, form a substantially unique audit identifier during each authentication/logon process. One method includes identifying one or more substantially unique parameters that are associated with the authentication/logon process and encrypting them to form at least one audit identifier that can then be generated and logged by each device involved in the authentication/logon process. The resulting audit log file can then be audited along with similar audit log files from other devices to track a user across multiple platforms.

Enhanced computer intrusion detection methods and systems

The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed to a taint mechanism. An object-based command declares a taint directive for a parameter within a command declaration. The taint directive is then associated with that parameter in a manner such that when an engine processes the command, the engine determines whether to process the command based on the taint directive and input for the parameter. The taint directive may specify that the input may be tainted or untainted. The command declaration may also include a taint parameter that specifies a taint characteristic for output from the command. The taint characteristic may be tainted, untainted, or propagated. Any type of object may become tainted. An untaint process may be applied to tainted data to obtain untainted data if an authorization check performed by the engine is successful.

System and method for distinguishing safe and potentially unsafe data during runtime processing

The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed at converting text into objects based on a template that describes the format of the text, where the format of the text is not in a standardized format. The objects then being available for further processing. The conversion mechanism converts the text into a dead object. The template comprises an object header indicator and a corresponding object header pattern. A new object is created based on the object header pattern identified within the text. In addition, the template comprises one or more field indicators each having a corresponding field pattern. The field pattern may be in a format of a regular expression. A field type and associated value are created from a string associated with the field pattern.

Mechanism for converting text output into objects

The Techniques and Mechanisms Described Herein are Directed to an Extensible security architecture that provides a security mechanism for minimizing security problems within interpretive environments. The extensible security architecture comprises a script engine configured to process a script and a security manager configured to monitor the processing of the script based on a security policy. The security manager determines whether to open an assembly associated with a command within the script, whether to process the command, whether to allow certain input to the command, and the like. The security policy may be implemented by overriding one or more methods of a base security class that are called when processing the script. The input may be an object passed via an object-based pipeline.

Extensible security architecture for an interpretive environment

The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed to a scripting security mechanism that minimizes security risks associated with interpreting a script written with a scripting language. An interpreter recognizes the scripting-language syntax within the script and processes each line that is designated within a data block using a restrictive set of operations. The restrictive set of operations are a subset of the total operations available for processing. If one of the lines within the data block attempts to perform an operation that is not within the restrictive set of operations, the interpreter provides an indication, such as an exception or message explaining the illegal operation. The interpreter also recognizes a list of export variables associated with the data block and exports only the variables identified in the list to an external environment if the export variable meets a constraint identified for it, if any.

Security mechanism for interpreting scripts in an interpretive environment

The techniques and mechanisms described herein are directed at converting text into objects based on a template that describes the format of the text. The objects then being available for further processing. The conversion mechanism converts the text into an object having at least one method that is directly invocable and that is specific to a data type specified for the live object. The template comprises an object header indicator and a corresponding object header pattern. A new object is created whenever the object header pattern is identified within the text. In addition, the template comprises one or more field indicators each having a corresponding field pattern. The field pattern is in a format of a regular expression. A new field is created for the new object whenever a field pattern is identified within the text.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Bhalchandra Pandit