Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Derek M Hazeur

Joshua T Goodman

Robert L Rounthwaite

Hugh V Rubin

Geoffrey John Hulten

Elissa E Murphy

Darrell Leroy Blegen

Josh D Benaloh

Manav Mishra

Ryan Charles Colvin

Nina Kang

Gopalakrishnan Seshadrinathan

Darrel L Blegen

Geoffrey J Hulten

Disclosed are systems and methods that facilitate securing communication channels used in a challenge-response system to mitigate spammer intrusion or deception. The systems and methods make use of unique IDs that can be added to outbound messages originating from a sender, a recipient, and a third-party server. The IDs can be correlated according to the relevant parties. Thus, for example, a sender can add a signed ID to an outgoing message. A challenge sent back to the sender for that particular message can echo the same ID or a new ID derived from the original ID to allow a sender to verify that the challenge corresponds to an actual message. The IDs can include cookies as well to facilitate correlation of messages and to facilitate the retrieval of messages once a sender is determined to be legitimate.

Challenge response systems

An application hosting a browser modifies its own functionality in some manner based on whether particular content (e.g., an identifier) is present in a document for rendering by the browser. In one embodiment, a financial statement page for rendering via the hosted browser is scanned to determine if an identifier corresponding to a download button is present. If present, the host application provides an alternate download button that does not scroll off the screen as the page is scrolled. The present invention also suppresses a dialog box (e.g., the open/save dialog box) when a request for a certain file type is made by a hosted browser. For example, a request for download of financial information suppresses the open/save dialog box, and automatically opens the downloaded file.

Method and system for modifying host application functionality based upon downloaded content

The present invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates incrementally updating spam filters in near real time or real time. Incremental updates can be generated in part by difference learning. Difference learning involves training a new spam filter based on new data and then looking for the differences between the new spam filter and the existing spam filter. Differences can be determined at least in part by comparing the absolute values of parameter changes (weight changes of a feature between the two filters). Other factors such as frequency of parameters can be employed as well. In addition, available updates with respect to particular features or messages can be looked up using one or more lookup tables or databases. When incremental and/or feature-specific updates are available, they can be downloaded such as by a client for example. Incremental updates can be automatically provided or can be provided by request according to client or server preferences.

Incremental anti-spam lookup and update service

The subject invention provides for an intelligent quarantining system and method that facilitates a more robust classification system in connection with spam prevention. The invention involves holding back some messages that appear to be questionable, suspicious, or untrustworthy from classification (as spam or good). In particular, the filter lacks information about these messages and thus classification is temporarily delayed. This provides more time for a filter update to arrive with a more accurate classification. The suspicious messages can be quarantined for a determined time period to allow more data to be collected regarding these messages. A number of factors can be employed to determine whether messages are more likely to be flagged for further analysis. User feedback by way of a feedback loop system can also be utilized to facilitate classification of the messages. After some time period, classification of the messages can be resumed.

Intelligent quarantining for spam prevention

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Derek M Hazeur