Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Google Inc.

Green Border Technologies

Ulfar Erlingsson

Martin Abadi

Edward Pearce Wobber

Michael Isard

Yuan Yu

Frank David McSherry

Andrew David Birrell

Muthukaruppan Annamalai

Mihai Budiu

Dennis Craig Fetterly

Mihai-Dan Budiu

Thomas Michael Roeder

Paul Barham

Jay A Ligatti

David Sehr

Mark Steven Manasse

Yinglian Xie

Xavier Boyen

Mingtzong Lee

Peter W Wieland

Cliff L Biffle

Manuel Alfred Fahndrich

Cedric Fournet

Paul Ronald Barham

Darrell Anderson

John Joseph Richardson

Mark Lentczner

Jason Ansel

Ankur Taly

Nar Ganapathy

Wayne Gray

Yinqian Zhang

Arnar Birgisson

Abraham D Flaxman

Ben Livshits

Michael Vrable

Joseph Gibbs Politz

Michael Daniel Vrable

General-purpose distributed data-parallel computing using a high-level language is disclosed. Data parallel portions of a sequential program that is written by a developer in a high-level language are automatically translated into a distributed execution plan. The distributed execution plan is then executed on large compute clusters. Thus, the developer is allowed to write the program using familiar programming constructs in the high level language. Moreover, developers without experience with distributed compute systems are able to take advantage of such systems.

General purpose distributed data parallel computing using a high level language

Methods, systems and articles of manufacture consistent with features of the present invention allow the generation and use of derived user accounts, or DUA, in a computer system comprising user accounts. In particular, derivation rules define how a DUA is linked to or created based on an existing original user account, or OUA. Derivation transformations may also update the state of a DUA based on its corresponding OUA or give feedback from the state of a DUA to the state of its corresponding OUA.

Methods and systems for using derived user accounts

A method of controlling the sharing of data between entities that are in electronic communication with each other may include generating an authentication credential comprising an identifier for the target service and a unique signature, attenuating the authentication credential, and determining whether a client device is authorized to access the target service, and, only if so, providing the authentication credential to the client device. In an embodiment, the method may include receiving an access request from the client device, identifying that the authentication credential includes the unique signature and a third party caveat that is associated with a third party authentication service, in response to the identifying, determining whether the request also comprises a discharge credential for the third party caveat, and if the request includes the discharge credential, providing the client device with the requested service, otherwise denying the request.

Methods and systems of generating and using authentication credentials for decentralized authorization in the cloud

Methods and systems are disclosed for providing secure transmissions across a network comprising a transmitting device and a receiving device. At the transmitting device, a stream of watermark bits is generated. Next, a plurality of watermarks is generated, each of the plurality of watermarks comprising an index number and a portion of the stream of watermark bits. The watermarks are inserted, into each header of a plurality of outgoing packets. At the receiving device, the plurality of outgoing packets are received and it is determined if a received packet is valid based on the watermark in the header of the received packet. The stream of watermark bits may be generated using a stream cipher such as RC4, a block cipher such as 3DES in CBC mode, or other equivalent pseudo-random stream generating techniques.

Packet validation using watermarks

A method includes receiving a budget cost for monitoring a plurality of tracepoints that occur as a result of operation of a device. The method further includes organizing a plurality of tracepoints into buckets such that each of the buckets corresponds to a range of expected interarrival times, and all tracepoints in a bucket have an expected interarrival time that is within the range for that bucket. The method further includes assigning a trigger to a first plurality of the bucketed tracepoints to yield a plurality of triggered tracepoints, wherein the triggers are proportionally assigned such that a tracepoint having a low expected interarrival time is less likely to be assigned a trigger than an tracepoint having a associated expected interarrival time such that an expected cost of the triggered tracepoints does not exceed the budget cost. Additionally, the method includes monitoring tracepoint occurrence during a first period of operation.

Statistical sampling of event monitoring triggers under overhead constraints

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for runtime language-independent sandboxing of software. In one aspect, a system implements an extended Software Fault Isolation (SFI) software sandboxing system configured to provide a user-mode program interface for receiving runtime requests for modifying verifiably safe executable machine code. Requests can include dynamic code creation, dynamic code deletion, and atomic modification of machine code instructions. A runtime modification of a verifiably safe executable memory region is made in response to each received runtime request, and code within the modified memory region has a guarantee of safe execution.

Safe self-modifying code

A client-side enforcement mechanism may allow application security policies to be specified at a server in a programmatic manner. Servers may specify security policies as JavaScript functions included in a page returned by the server and run before other scripts. At runtime, and during initial loading, the functions are invoked by the client on each page modification to ensure the page conforms to the security policy. As such, before a mutation takes effect, the policy may transform that mutation and the code and data of the page. Replicated code execution may take place at both the client and the server where the server runs its own shadow copy of a client-side application in a trusted execution environment so that the server may check that the method calls coming from the client correspond to a correct execution of the client-side application The redundant execution at the client can be untrusted, but serves to improve the responsiveness and performance of the Web application.

Enhanced security and performance of web applications

Extensions to operating systems or software applications can be hosted in virtual environments to fault isolate the extension. A generic proxy extension invoked by a host process can coordinate the invocation of an appropriate extension in a virtual process that can provide the same support APIs as the host process. Furthermore, a user mode context can be provided to the extension in the virtual process through memory copying or page table modifications. In addition, the virtual process, especially a virtual operating system process running on a virtual machine, can be efficiently started by cloning a coherent state. A coherent state can be created when a virtual machine starts up, or when the computing device starts up and the appropriate parameters are observed and saved. Alternatively, the operating system can create a coherent state by believing there is an additional CPU during the boot process.

VEX&#x2014;virtual extension framework

General-purpose distributed data-parallel computing using high-level computing languages is described. Data parallel portions of a sequential program that is written by a developer in a high-level language are automatically translated into a distributed execution plan. A set of extensions to a sequential high-level computing language are provided to support distributed parallel computations and to facilitate generation and optimization of distributed execution plans. The extensions are fully integrated with the programming language, thereby enabling developers to write sequential language programs using known constructs while providing the ability to invoke the extensions to enable better generation and optimization of the execution plan for a distributed computing environment.

High level programming extensions for distributed data parallel processing

A device driver includes a kernel stub and a user-mode module. The device driver may access device registers while operating in user-mode to promote system stability while providing a low-latency software response from the system upon interrupts. Upon receipt of an interrupt, the kernel stub may run an interrupt service routine and write information to shared memory. Control is passed to the user-mode module by a reflector. The user-mode module may then read the information from the shared memory to continue servicing the interrupt.

Split user-mode/kernel-mode device driver architecture

Instruction set architecture (ISA) extension support is described for control-flow integrity (CFI) and for XFI memory protection. ISA replaces CFI guard code with single instructions. ISA support is provided for XFI in the form of bounds-check instructions. Compared to software guards, hardware support for CFI and XFI increases the efficiency and simplicity of enforcement. In addition, the semantics for CFI instructions allows more precise static control-flow graph encodings than were possible with a prior software CFI implementation.

Architectural support for software-based protection

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Ulfar Erlingsson