Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Edward F Reus

Stephen Scott Evans

Gopal Parupudi

Jeffrey S Roberts

Michael D Zoran

Mario C Goertzel

Joseph Dadzie

Scott Field

Michael Joseph Healy

David E Kays

Henricus Johannes Maria Meijer

John R Douceur

Christopher Scott Gouge

Marc Shepard

Mazhar Naveed Mohammed

Kancheng Cao

David Cris Hennessey

Jian Lin

Igor Liokumovich

Barbara Harder

Narayana Mahankali

Steve P Shih

Jianbo Hou

Anna Magdalena Hester

Mike Zoran

Sunni K Goeller

Burdette J Holtgrewe

Gregory Burns

Srivatsan Parthasarathy

Michael V Sliger

Thottam Sriram

Jimin Li

David B Dehghan

Mahmood Ahmed Dhalla

Nirmal Rajesh Soy

Varadarajan Thiruvillamalai

Jason J Roberts

Craig C Marl

Derek C Y Cheng

Xiang He

Peter A Williams

Vidyasankar Raman

Krishnan Rangarajan

Jeff S Roberts

Jefferson Davis

Lie Ma

Michael David Alan Zoran

David Kays

Joseph G Dadzie

Anna M Hester

The subject disclosure relates to techniques for monitoring contextual and performance information of a device for anticipatorily sending update information to the device. An interface component can receive, from the client, contextual information indicating an operating environment of the client and performance information that is associated with one or more operations being performed by the client based on the operating environment, and send, based on correlation information, update information to the client. Further, a service component can to infer a relationship between the contextual information and the performance information to obtain the correlation information. In other embodiments, a client can populate a cache with portion(s) of the contextual information to obtain cached information, and send at least a portion of the cached information to a system including one or more aspects of the service component.

Discovery and mining of performance information of a device for anticipatorily sending updates to the device

Embodiments are directed to the providing a cloud keying and signing service and to securing software package distribution on the cloud. In an embodiment, a computer system instantiates a signing service configured to sign software packages. The computer system receives a signing request from a computer user requesting that a selected software package be signed. The signing request includes a computed hash of the selected software package. The computer system generates a private and public key pair on behalf of the computer user and stores the private key of the generated key pair in a secure data store.

Providing security services on the cloud

Sending installation information. A method may be performed, for example, in a network computing environment including one or more servers connected to one or more clients. The method includes signing a package including installation information. A hash of the package is created. A metadata data set is created. The metadata data set includes a description of the package, an identification for the package, applicability rules describing intended recipients of the installation information, the hash of the package, and installation instructions for the package. The metadata data set is sent to a target group of systems in the network computing environment.

Secure content publishing and distribution

Data management techniques are provided for handling information resources. A data management process can account for attributes of information resources by analyzing or interpreting the workspace location, source, channel and device associated with an information resource, and effectuating policies, based on the attributes. Rules govern the attribute determination and policies for access restriction to the information resource. The attributes and policies determined are tagged to the information resource and is dynamically updated based on the attributes related to the information resource within different workspaces, such as a corporate workspace and a personal workspace.

Protection of data in a mixed use device

An electronic device may be reported as potentially compromised (e.g., by a user or by the electronic device itself). An instruction to initiate remediation of the electronic device may be queued. Upon reaching the end of the queue, the instruction is transmitted to the electronic device to initiate remediation of the electronic device. The instruction is received by the electronic device. The remediation policy is performed, which may include performing operations such as deleting an encryption key, deleting data, disabling a login capability, disabling a boot up functionality, disabling a function associated with the electronic device, transmitting data from the electronic device, transmitting a message from the electronic device, or generating information that indicates of a user of the electronic device.

Mitigations for potentially compromised electronic devices

A software distribution mechanism evaluates network addresses of requesting clients to determine a location for each client. The clients from a particular location are grouped together and a fraction of those clients in a particular group are recipients of a software distribution. The faction is adjusted to enable more or fewer clients to download, thus effectively throttling the amount of bandwidth consumed by a mass distribution event. The fraction may be adjusted for particular geographical locations and the time of day to make more effective use of network bandwidth.

Software deployment using client location

A regulation service can deliver software packages to client computer systems while minimizing the overall effect on network (internet or LAN) traffic and/or server loads. In one implementation, the regulation service assigns acceptance rates to different software packages based on any number of different factors. Upon request for a software package, the regulation service can provide the acceptance rate and a refresh rate that differs for each software package. A client computer system can then calculate an access value, and if the access value is within an acceptance rate, the client computer system can access (e.g., download) a corresponding software package. If the access value is outside of the acceptance rate, the client computer system can refresh its requests until it identifies that the acceptance rate has changed, and the calculated value is within the new acceptance rate. Additional implementations include delivering bandwidth management policies to client computer systems.

Dynamically regulating content downloads

Described is a technology by which encrypted content is pre-distributed to recipients during a pre-distribution timeframe, for example to distribute protected content to many clients in a controlled manner. At a release moment, a key for decrypting the encrypted content is released. For example, a software update may be pre-distributed in this manner, whereby many clients may receive the updates over time but the update cannot be analyzed for hacking purposes, e.g., to use the update to figure out a prior vulnerability. By rapidly and widely disseminating the key at the release moment, the update is installed on a large percentage of client systems before those systems can be exploited. The content may be allowed to expire before the key is released, or may be canceled or replaced. The content may include a complete file, and/or a delta file that changes another file into a resultant piece of content.

Secure content pre-distribution to designated systems

Location-aware methods and systems are described. In one embodiment, a portable computing device determines its location by accessing one or more hierarchical tree structures each of which comprising multiple nodes that represent physical or logical locations, and traversing at least one node on the one or more hierarchical tree structures to ascertain the location. The device then acquires digital data associated with the determined location and that can permit the device to interact with a location environment. The device then enables interaction with the location environment based, at least in part, on the acquired digital data.

Environment-interactive context-aware devices and methods

Context-aware systems and methods, location-aware systems and methods, context-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same, and location-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same are described. In various embodiments, a context or location service module, implemented in software, determines a vehicle context or a vehicle location based upon information that it receives from various context providers or location providers respectively. Software executing on a vehicle's computer can then cause one or more applications that are associated with a vehicle computer to be modified in a manner that changes their behavior. The behavior modification is based on the current context or location of the vehicle and thus provides a context-specific or location-specific user experience. The context or location can be ascertained through the use of one or more hierarchical tree structures that comprises individual nodes. Each node is associated with a context or location. The nodes are traversable by the vehicle's software to ascertain a more complete context or location.

Context-aware systems and methods location-aware systems and methods context-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same and location-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same

A hierarchical software update distribution system and method for distributing software updates is presented. The update distribution system includes a root update service node and at least one update service node. In an update distribution system, each update service node, except the root update service node, has one parent update service node. Each update service node may function as a parent update service node to child update service nodes.

Update distribution system architecture and method for distributing software

Context-aware and location-aware systems, methods, and vehicles, and method of operating the same

Context-aware computing systems and methods are described. In particular embodiments, location aware systems and methods are described. In the described embodiments, hierarchical tree structures are utilized to ascertain a device context or location. The tree structures can be stored on or accessible to mobile computing devices so that the devices can determine their own particular context or location. A computing device can automatically determine its context or location by ascertaining a node on one or more of the tree structures and then traversing the tree structure to ascertain the complete context.

Context aware computing devices and methods

Growing community of inventors

Woodenville, WA, United States of America

Edward F Reus