Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jeffrey Earl Steinbok

Joseph Andrew Bono

Brian M Perrin

Jonathan Alexander Bockelman

Dan Wu

Nicola Greene Alfeo

Eileen S Hash

Trevin M Chow

Daniel W Crevier

Erren Dusan Lester

Kevin Thomas Brown

Sarah Michelle Filman

Arcadiy Gregory Kantor

Harry Phillip Ferguson, Iv

Eric J Zappa

Thomas R Bauman

Josh D Benaloh

Ismail Cem Paya

Rui Chen

Daron Spektor

Ranjib Singh Badh

Jeffrey Craig Kunins

Peter Kenneth Harwood

Raja Pazhanivel Perumal

Jason C Fluegel

David Citron

Gyorgy K Schadt

Julien Couvreur

Jianfeng Cai

Amy Jennifer Beauford

Shabbir A Shahpurwala

Edgar A Banguero

Sophie Dasinger

Derek Kiwamu Tsuchida

Katrina M Blanch

Karen G Luk

Michael F Matsel

Jose Emmanuel Miranda Steiner

Mark Wong

Archana Manoj Gadkari

David W Law

Abdul Haadi Mohammed

Peter Erling Hauge

Wendy Wenjing Wang

Raj Moizbhai Dhrolia

Sandeep Kumar

Eric J Holton

Andy Ness

Catherine Amy McDonald

Prajakta Sudhir Samant

Nir Zvi Yurman

Tyler Pennington

Rebecca L Pezely

Harry Phillip Iv Ferguson

Disclosed herein is a system for providing a test environment, composed of one or more virtual machines, to a developer instantly in response to a checkout request from the developer. To do this, a sandbox service implements a smart, tiered approach to creating and provisioning virtual machines that compose the test environments. The approach is flexible and elastic in nature, so that the developers do not have to wait an extended period of time for a test environment, yet the costs associated with configuring the virtual machines (e.g., storage and compute costs) are minimized. For example, the sandbox service can use historical data to predict a number of checkout requests expected for a first time interval (e.g., one day), a second time interval (e.g., thirty minutes), and a third time interval (e.g., five minutes). The sandbox service can then configure virtual machines into different states based on the predicted numbers.

Adaptive resource management for instantly provisioning test environments via a sandbox service

The techniques discussed herein relate to providing a highly available and reliable secret distribution infrastructure. In an implementation, a key master service (KMS) system is disclosed. The KMS system includes one or more computer readable storage media having program instructions stored thereon which, when executed by one or more processing systems, direct the one or more processing systems to identify a hydration event and, responsive to the hydration event, determine if other KMS systems are running in a secret distribution infrastructure. The program instructions, when executed by one or more processing systems, further direct the KMS system to hydrate the KMS system with secret information obtained from the one or more of the other KMS systems when the other KMS systems are running in the secret distribution infrastructure.

Highly available and reliable secret distribution infrastructure

Systems and methods for creating training data for a software application that executes automated tasks such as operating system shell. One example provides a system that comprises at least one electronic processor configured to access a file repository that contains programming files. The electronic processor is also configured to extract data from documentation associated with at least one of the programming files to generate extracted data, extract attributes associated with at least one of the programming files to generate extracted attributes, convert the extracted data and the extracted attributes to training data, and store the training data in a training data repository. The electronic processor is also configured to update the documentation and attributes in the programming files (for example, by providing a user interface to allow a user to do so or in another fashion).

Natural language interface to interactive, operating-system shell and techniques for creating training data for the same

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for impersonating target user accounts via account redirection. In one aspect, a request may be received at a service issued from a temporary account of the service accessed by a client application. It may be determined whether the temporary account is stored in a mapping table comprising one or more temporary accounts mapped to a corresponding impersonation token. When it is determined that the temporary account is stored in the mapping table, the corresponding impersonation token mapped to the temporary account may be identified. The request may be processed in an impersonation mode based on the identified impersonation token.

Impersonating target account via account redirection

Techniques for sharing of items from online storage (e.g., cloud storage) are described herein. In at least some embodiments, sharing links can be configured as one-time sharing links that provide recipients with limited, one-time access to a shared item for the purpose of selecting or registering an account to use for subsequent access to the item. Recipients are able to select accounts they find most convenient for accessing a shared item without the owner/sharer of the item necessarily having contact information for those accounts or sending a link to the accounts. Selection of a one-time link initiates an authentication sequence that selectively provides an option to select a particular account. Once the one-time sharing link is redeemed, the one-time sharing link is invalidated for subsequent access to the item.

Shared item account selection

Techniques are described to provide revocable object access. In an implementation, a user may provide content and an object (e.g., a picture) to be published with the content. The object is uploaded to a storage location, and a uniform resource locator (URL) that includes a token is generated for the object. The token is registered in an access control list (ACL), and token permission settings in the ACL are utilized to control access to the object. The URL may be embedded in the content. When a viewer requests the content, the object may be retrieved from the storage location using the URL. The user may revoke access to the object by changing the token permission settings in the ACL.

Revocable object access

Techniques are described to share items from a favorites list. In an implementation, a list entry for a favorites list may be associated with content from a third party source by a first user. The favorites list may be presented in a webpage to display the list entry and the associated content to another user. A control operable to share the list entry with the other user may be exposed with the list entry. Responsive to operation of the control, the content and/or related data may be obtained from the third party source and data may be stored to associate the list entry including the obtained content with the other user. In at least some embodiments, the control is operable by a single-click to cause the sharing of the list entry.

Favorites list sharing

Communication abuse prevention techniques are described. In an implementation, a reputation level for a communication is determined based on relation information for a sender and an intended recipient of the communication. A challenge is invoked that is to be completed by the sender before the communication is sent. The challenge is selected based on the reputation level for the communication. The communication is caused to be available for access based on successful completion of the challenge. Access to the communication is inhibited in response to a subsequent determination of the reputation level that indicates that the reputation level for the communication has changed to a new reputation level prior to the communication being accessed by the intended recipient. The subsequent determination is based on additional information associated with the sender of the communication.

Communication abuse prevention

Techniques for asynchronous task execution are described. In an implementation, tasks may be initiated and executed asynchronously, thereby allowing a plurality of calls to be made in parallel. Each task may be associated with a respective timeout that triggers an end to execution of the task. If a timeout for a low priority task expires without completing both the low priority task and a relatively higher priority task, then the low priority task may use the relatively higher priority task to extend execution time of the low priority task in order to allow additional time to perform the low priority task.

Asynchronous task execution

Communication abuse prevention techniques are described. In an implementation, a reputation level for a communication is determined based on relation information for a sender and an intended recipient of the communication. A challenge is invoked that is to be completed by the sender before the communication is sent. The challenge is selected based on the reputation level for the communication.

A visitor to a profile page is invited to modify a user profile associated with the profile page. If the visitor elects to provide a suggested modification to the profile page, a message is transmitted to the user that owns the profile page requesting authorization to perform the suggested modification. In response to the message, the user can accept the suggested modification to the user profile, decline the suggested modification to the user profile, or edit the suggested modification to the user profile. If the user accepts or edits the suggested modification to the user profile, the user profile is modified accordingly. In this manner, a visitor to a profile page can assist in the creation of a user profile.

Visitor-assisted user profile creation

A plurality of modules which provide a user with tools for engaging in social networking are created. The plurality of modules are associated with a service. A server hosting the web space receives a selection from the user corresponding to a first module. In response to the selection, the server associates the service with the web space. The first module renders the web space on a client accessing the web space. The server enables a visitor to the web space to access a second module form the plurality of modules associated with the service. The accessed second module will display the web space in a second format on the client of the visitor.

Componentized site engine services

Techniques are described which may be employed to provide a login screen with identifying data. In an implementation, a login screen is displayed having an image that identifies a user. Credentials are received via the login screen to log the user onto a service provider over a network.

Login screen with identifying data

A human interactive proof (HIP) service is described. In response to a request from a web server, the HIP service generates a HIP challenge and an associated attestation. The web server can then embed the generated HIP challenge in a requested web page. The attestation is used to determine whether or not a user response to the HIP challenge is correct.

Human interactive proof service

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Jeffrey Earl Steinbok