Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Stuart Schechter

Alice Jane Bernheim Brush

Cormac E Herley

Amy Kathleen Karlson

Karin Strauss

Jacob Rubin Lorch

Jonathan Ryan Howell

Barry Clayton Bond

David Alexander Molnar

Bryan Jeffrey Parno

Robert Wilson Reeder

Douglas Christopher Burger

John R Douceur

Gabriel H Loh

Charles W Kaufman

Edmund Bernard Nightingale

Yordan Ivanov Rouskov

Jeremy Eric Elson

Peter L Montgomery

Oriana Riva

Michael D Mitzenmacher

Eiji Hayashi

Alain Forget

Kami E Vaniea

Techniques for providing intuitive feedback to a user regarding which applications have access to a data stream captured by a privacy-sensitive device, such as a camera, a microphone, a location sensor, an accelerometer or the like. These techniques apprise the user of when an application is receiving potentially privacy-sensitive data and the identity of the application receiving the data. In some instances, this feedback comprises a graphical icon that visually represents the data stream being received and that dynamically alters with the received data stream. For instance, if an application receives a data stream from a camera of a computing device of the user, the described techniques may display an image of the video feed captured by the camera and being received by the application. This graphical icon intuitively alerts the user of the data stream that the application receives.

Creating awareness of accessed to privacy-sensitive devices

A backup account recovery authentication of last resort using social authentication is described. The account holder requests trustees who have been previously identified to obtain an account recovery code. The account recovery system sends a communication to the trustee for information to verify the trustee as one of the previously identified trustees. The account recovery system then may transmit a link and code with instructions for the trustee to return the link. The account recovery system then transmits a situational query to the trustee to provide additional security. Finally, if all the communications have been completed for the required level of security, the account recovery code is transmitted to the trustee. The trustee sends the account recovery code to the account holder for access to an account.

Social authentication for account recovery

Systems and methods that regulate range of access to personal information of a mobile unit's owner. The access control component can designate granularity for access levels and/or a spectrum of access modes&#x2014;(as opposed to a binary choice of full access or no access at all). Such access can be based on a spectrum and/or discrete trust relationship between the owner and user of the mobile unit. A profile definition component can exploit an owner's trust relationships to designate levels of security. The profile definition component can further define a profile based on a set of applications, such as entertainment mode, browser mode, and the like.

Owner privacy in a shared mobile device

Various technologies pertaining to authenticating a password in a manner that prevents offline dictionary attacks are described. A protected module, which can be a hardware security module, a trusted platform module, or the like, is in communication with an authentication server. The protected module comprises a key that is restricted to the protected module. The key is employed in connection with authenticating the password on the protected module.

Utilization of a protected module to prevent offline dictionary attacks

A Metadata server described herein is configured to generate a metadata table optimized for data durability and recovery. In generating the metadata table, the metadata server associates each possible combination of servers with one of the indices of the table, thereby ensuring that each server participates in recovery in the event of a server failure. In addition, the metadata server may also associate one or more additional servers with each index to provide added data durability. Upon generating the metadata table, the metadata server provides the metadata table to clients or servers. Alternatively, the metadata server may provide rules and parameters to clients to enable those clients to identify servers storing data items. The clients may use these parameters and an index as inputs to the rules to determine the identities of servers storing or designated to store data items corresponding to the index.

Data layout for recovery and durability

Techniques to provide evidence-based dynamic scoring to limit guesses in knowledge based authentication are disclosed herein. In some aspects, an authenticator may receive an input from a user in response to a presentation of a personal question that enables user access to a restricted resource. The authenticator may determine that the input is not equivalent to a stored value, and thus is an incorrect input. The authenticator may then determine whether the input is similar to a previous input received from the user. A score may be assigned to the input. When the input is determined to be similar to the previous input, the score may be reduced. Another request for an input may be transmitted by the authenticator when a sum of the score and any previous scores of the session is less than a threshold.

Evidence-based dynamic scoring to limit guesses in knowledge-based authentication

Creating awareness of accesses to privacy-sensitive devices

A popularity determination module (PDM) is described which reduces the effectiveness of statistical guessing attacks. The PDM operates by receiving a password (or other secret information item) from a user. The PDM uses a model to determine whether the password is popular among a group of users. If so, the PDM may ask the user to select another password. In one implementation, the model corresponds to a probabilistic model, such a count-min sketch model. The probabilistic model provides an upper-bound assessment of a number of times that a password has been encountered. Further, the probabilistic model provides false positives (in which passwords are falsely assessed as popular) at a rate that exceeds a prescribed minimum rate. The false positives are leveraged to reduce the effectiveness of statistical guessing attacks by malicious entities.

Use of popularity information to reduce risk posed by guessing attacks

A collaboration system is described for sharing files. The collaboration system operates by receiving an Email message from a sender, the Email message specifying an attachment item (such as a file) and one or more recipients. The Email message also specifies a sender code assigned to the sender for the particular attachment item. The collaboration system stores the attachment item and then generates a recipient-specific code associated with each recipient who is to receive the Email message. The collaboration system then sends a recipient-tailored Email message to each recipient. Each recipient-tailored Email message contains Email content provided by the original Email message along with a recipient-specific code associated with the recipient. Each recipient can access the attachment item via its recipient-specific code, which constitutes a secure access key.

Functionality for sharing items using recipient-specific access codes

A current prefix character string representing a prefix of a proposed password may be obtained from a user input device. A prediction of a most likely next character of the proposed password may be determined, based on applying a set of heuristics to the current prefix character string. A response indicating an impact on a security strength of the proposed password may be determined, based on a selection of the predicted most likely next character.

Predicting next characters in password generation

Architecture that implements error correcting pointers (ECPs) with a memory row, which point to the address of failed memory cells, each of which is paired with a replacement cell to be substituted for the failed cell. If two error correcting pointers in the array point to the same cell, a precedence rule dictates the array entry with the higher index (the entry created later) takes precedence. To count the number of error correcting pointers in use, a null pointer address can be employed to indicate that a pointer is inactive, an activation bit can be added, and/or a counter, that represents the number of error correcting pointers that are active. Mechanisms are provided for wear-leveling within the error correction structure, or for pairing this scheme with single-error correcting bits for instances where transient failures may occur. The architecture also employs pointers to correct errors in volatile and non-volatile memories.

Error correcting pointers for non-volatile storage

Techniques are described for device locking with activity preservation at a specified level within a multi-level hierarchy of device states. Such locking enables a user to share a device with another user while specifying a particular level of access to the device, such as access to a particular class of applications, a specific application, or a specific task within an application. Determination of the authorized activity may be based on a currently active application, or on the particular user gesture. The level of functionality made available may be based on the number of times a user gesture is repeated. Gestures may include a selection of a hardware or software control on the device, issuance of a voice command, and the like.

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Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Stuart Schechter