Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Blair Brewster Dillaway

Moritz Y Becker

Andrew Donald Gordon

Cedric Fournet

Brian LaMacchia

Charles F Rose

Terry M Lipscomb

Jason Forrest Mackay

Gregory Darrell Fee

John L Manferdelli

Rushmi U Malaviarachchi

Chandramouli Venkatesh

Barbara Lynch Fox

Steve Bourne

Pierre Jacomet

Kumar B Parambir

Terrence R Spies

Doug Barlow

Paul England

Marcus Peinado

Muthukrishnan Paramasivam

Yevgeniy Eugene Rozenfeld

John Michael Leen

Bryan M Willman

Keith Stuart Kaplan

Alan Geller

Ravindra Pandya

Philip J Lafornara

Shawn M Woods

Michael Alfred Aday

Jason Hogg

Douglas C Barlow

Yevgeniy (Eugene) Rozenfeld

Selena Wilson

Rushmi U Malviarachchi

Brian A Lamacchia

Jason F Mackay

Rushimi U Malaviarachchi

Charles F Iii Rose

Security language constructs may be translated into logic language constructs and vice versa. Logic resolution may be effected using, for example, the logic language constructs. In an example implementation, translation of a security language assertion into at least one logic language rule is described. In another example implementation, translation of a proof graph reflecting a logic language into a proof graph reflecting a security language is described. In yet another example implementation, evaluation of a logic language program using a deterministic algorithm is described.

Security language translations with logic resolution

A security language expresses assertions and authorization queries in a manner that facilitates logic resolution. In an example implementation, assertion syntax and authorization query syntax are described. In another example implementation, checks on the safety of assertions and authorization queries are described. In yet another example implementation, semantics rules are described.

Security language expressions for logic resolution

Software tools assist an access-policy analyst or creator to debug and/or author access policies. An access request contains a query that evaluates to either true or false depending on whether access is to be allowed. Abduction may be used to generate assumptions that, if true, would cause the access request to be true. The tool may perform analysis on the generated assumptions, such as: comparing the assumptions with tokens to detect errors in the tokens or to suggest changes to the tokens that would cause the query to be satisfied, or comparing the assumptions to a meta-policy. The tool may allow an analysis, policy author, or other person to interactively walk through assumptions in order to see the implications of the access policy.

Access policy analysis

A publishing user publishes digital content and issues to itself a corresponding digital publisher license to allow itself to render the published digital content. The publishing user is supplied with a publishing certificate from a digital rights management (DRM) server, where the publishing certificate allows the publishing user to so publish the digital content and to so issue the publisher license.

Issuing a publisher use license off-line in a digital rights management (DRM) system

For a data transfer, security is negotiated via a control channel operating in accordance with a first protocol. The data is transmitted responsive to the security negotiation on a data channel operating in accordance with a second protocol. For example, a described implementation involves using a security control protocol and a separate secure data transfer protocol that operate cooperatively, but independently, to provide flexible application layer security with highly efficient data transfers.

Separating control and data operations to support secured data transfers

Security language constructs may be translated into logic language constructs and vise versa. Logic resolution may be effected using, for example, the logic language constructs. In an example implementation, translation of a security language assertion into at least one logic language rule is described. In another example implementation, translation of a proof graph reflecting a logic language into a proof graph reflecting a security language is described. In yet another example implementation, evaluation of a logic language program using a deterministic algorithm is described.

Access to a resource may be controlled by a policy, such that a request to access the resource is either granted or denied based on what assertions have been made by various principals. To find the assertions that support a grant of access to the resource, a template may be created that defines the nature of assertions that would cause access to succeed. Assertions may be stored in the form of tokens. The template may be used to search an existing token store to find assertions that have been made, and/or to generate assertions that have not been found in the token store and that would satisfy the template. The assertions in the template may be created by performing an abductive reasoning process on an access query.

Delegation in logic-based access control

In an example implementation, a bifurcated security scheme has a first level that does not allow usage of negations and a second level that does permit usage of negations. In another example implementation, an authorization query table maps respective resource-specific operations to respective associated authorization queries. In yet another example implementation, authorization queries are permitted to have negations, but individual assertions are not.

Security authorization queries

In an example implementation, a data structure comports with a secure application instruction protocol. The data structure includes a first application-level request and a second application-level request. The first application-level request has application-specific instructions from a requestor and a requestor signature over the application-specific instructions from the requestor. The second application-level request has application-specific instructions from an intermediary and an intermediary signature over at least the application-specific instructions from the intermediary.

Securing distributed application information delivery

The auditing of authorization decisions is facilitated by integrating or coupling an audit policy to access control decisions. In an example implementation, an audit policy of an auditing scheme is coupled to a semantic framework of an access control scheme such that the audit policy is specified using at least a portion of the semantic framework. In another example implementation, audit policy rules include audit content rules that specify what audit information from any of the inputs, the outputs, or the internal data of authorization decisions is to be included in an audit record. In yet another example implementation, a semantic of an audit trigger rule comports with a semantic framework of an access request and of a logical evaluation for an authorization decision.

Auditing authorization decisions

The delegation of rights may be controlled in a number of manners. In an example implementation, a delegation authority assertion is formulated with a delegator principle, a delegatee principal, a verb phrase, a resource, and a delagation-directive verb. In another example implementation, a delegation mechanism involving an assertor, a first principal, and a second principal enables a delegation to be specifically controlled. In yet another example implementation, a chained delegation mechanism enables explicit control of a permitted transitive chaining depth.

Controlling the delegation of rights

Security assertion revocation enables a revocation granularity in a security scheme down to the level of individual assertions. In an example implementation, a security token includes multiple respective assertions that are associated with multiple respective assertion identifiers. More specifically, each individual assertion is associated with at least one individual assertion identifier.

Security assertion revocation

Techniques for managing security contexts may be described. An apparatus may comprise a processor and a security management module. The security management module may form a merged security context for multiple concurrent threads, with one of the threads depending on more than one preceding operation from other threads. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques for managing security contexts

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Blair Brewster Dillaway