Abstract: The claimed subject matter in accordance with an aspect provides systems and/or methods that generates, allocates, or utilizes strong symmetric cryptographic keys to secure storage devices. The system can include components that determine whether a storage device with an associated credential cache has been affiliated with the system. The system extracts authentication information included within the credential cache and establishes communications with a web service that utilizes the authentication information to generate and return a set strong symmetric cryptographic keys to the system. The system employs one of the set of strong symmetric cryptographic keys to encrypt or decrypt the storage device to make content persisted on the storage device available and thereafter removes the distributed set of strong symmetric cryptographic keys from the system.

Abstract: Audio signals, such as a music clip, are inserted with detectable watermarks. The inserted watermark can identify the content producer and provide a signature embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark can survive all typical kinds of processing and malicious attacks. The watermark can be implemented in a watermarking system that employs a covert channel encoder to layer an additional information data message or covert message on top of the watermark. The watermarking system can also include a permutation technique to further hide the watermark and hide the covert message within the watermark.

Abstract: The subject matter includes systems, engines, and methods for generalizing a class of Lempel-Ziv algorithms for lossy compression of multimedia. One implementation of the subject matter compresses audio signals. Because music, especially electronically generated music, has a substantial level of repetitiveness within a single audio clip, the basic Lempel-Ziv compression technique can be generalized to support representing a single window of an audio signal using a linear combination of filtered past windows. Exemplary similarity searches and filtering strategies for finding the past windows are described.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed to enable utilization of randomly-occurring features of a label (whether embedded or naturally inherent) to provide counterfeit-resistant and/or tamper-resistant labels. More specifically, labels including randomly-occurring features are scanned to determine the labels' features. The information from the scan is utilized to provide identifying indicia which uniquely identifies each label and may be later verified against the label features that are present to determine whether the label is genuine. In a described implementation, the identifying indicia may be cryptographically signed.

Abstract: Detecting and/or tolerating races. Races occur due to malicious threads not respecting software locks. A method of detecting and/or correcting races includes making local copie(s) and reference copie(s) of shared data. Any read and write operations performed by a safe thread are caused to be performed on the local copie(s) during a critical section. The critical section defines a time frame which a variable lock is placed on shared data. Any read and write operations performed by malicious threads are allowed to be performed on the shared data during the critical section. The shared data, the local copie(s), and the reference copie(s) are compared to determine that a race has been detected. An indication can be output that a race has occurred or the race can be corrected.

Abstract: Systems and methodologies for efficient vaccine design are disclosed herein. A methodology for efficient vaccine design in accordance with one or more embodiments disclosed herein may be operable to receive a graph having vertices corresponding to epitope sequences present in the pathogen population, weights for respective vertices corresponding to respective frequencies with which corresponding epitope sequences appear in the pathogen population, and directed edges that connect vertices that correspond to overlapping epitope sequences. Such a methodology may also be operable to determine a candidate vaccine sequence of overlapping epitope sequences by identifying a path though the graph corresponding to a series of connected vertices and directed edges that maximizes the total weight of the vertices in the path for a desired vaccine sequence length.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or method that detect watermarks incorporated within analog and/or digital signals associated with multimedia presentations. The disclosed system can include a component that receives analog and/or digital signals, ascertains the existence of a watermark associated with the received signals, and extracts metadata encapsulated within the watermark, wherein the metadata can both include information regarding the broadcast multimedia presentations as well as information unrelated to the broadcast multimedia. Extracted metadata or more particularly, attributes contained within the metadata can be utilized to establish online social networks based at least on the associated attributes.

Abstract: Described herein is an audio watermarking technology for detecting watermarks in audio signals, such as a music clip. The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and all types of malicious attacks that attempt to remove or modify the watermark from the signal. The implementations of the watermark detecting system, described herein, support quick, efficient, and accurate detection of watermarks by the specifically designed watermark detecting system. In one described implementation, a watermark detecting system employs an improved normalized covariance test to determine the presence of a watermark using less expensive materials (hardware), quicker calculations, and a more accurate test (than the original correlation test).

Abstract: Described herein is an audio watermarking technology for detecting watermarks in audio signals, such as a music clip. The watermark identifies the content producer, providing a signature that is embedded in the audio signal and cannot be removed. The watermark is designed to survive all typical kinds of processing and all types of malicious attacks that attempt to remove or modify the watermark from the signal. The implementations of the watermark detecting system, described herein, support quick, efficient, and accurate detection of watermarks by the specifically designed watermark detecting system. In one described implementation, a watermark detecting system employs an improved normalized covariance test to determine the presence of a watermark using less expensive materials (hardware), quicker calculations, and a more accurate test (than the original correlation test).

Abstract: The claimed subject matter relates to architectures and/or mechanisms that can facilitate issuing, embedding and verification of an optical DNA (o-DNA) signature. A first mechanism is provided for obtaining a set of manufacturing errors inherent in an optical media instance. These errors can be encoded into the o-DNA that can be cryptographically signed with a private key, then embedded into the source optical media instance. A second mechanism is provided that can decrypt the o-DNA with a public key and compare the authenticated errors to the observed errors to ascertain whether the optical media instance is authentic as opposed to a forgery or counterfeit.

Abstract: A method includes forming a feature vector associated with an iris of an individual using a transform operation including converting an iris image into a log-polar image, scaling one or more samples in the log-polar image according to a Fourier-Mellin transform, and performing a Fourier transform on the scaled samples. The method involves forming an iris digest based on the feature vector, and creating a biometric identifier based on the iris digest. A system includes an iris scanner, an iris analyzer that forms an image of a human iris wherein the presence of eyelashes in the image is minimized, forms a feature vector associated with the iris image using a modified Fourier-Mellin transform, and compresses the feature vector into an iris digest.

Abstract: A system that identifies commonalities and/or differences in data is disclosed. Specifically, the innovation employs hashing algorithms to identify similarities and/or differences in data from one entity by comparing a hash of the data to a hash of data of another entity. The hashing functionality maintains privacy and/or confidentiality of the information thereby reducing the possibility of accidental or unwanted disclosure.

Abstract: Motion detection notification is described. In an embodiment, a motion detector in a portable device detects a motion of the device and issues an activation signal when the detected motion has a magnitude greater than a preset threshold. A detection notification component in the portable device then receives the activation signal and initiates communication with an additional device that detects a corresponding motion to the motion of the portable device and is configured for communication with the portable device.

Abstract: Compression and decompression of data such as a sequential list of executable instructions (e.g., program binaries) by uniformly applying a predictive model generated from one segment of the executable list as a common predictive starting point for the other segments of the executable list. This permits random access and decompression of any segment of the executable list once a first segment (or another reference segment) of the executable list has been decompressed. This means that when executing an executable list (e.g., an executable file), a particular segment(s) of the executable list may not need to be accessed and decompressed at all if there are no instructions in that particular segment(s) that are executed.

Abstract: Described herein is a technology for facilitating watermark detection. Spread-spectrum watermarking is a commonly employed technique for hiding data in digital goods (e.g., multimedia signals). Such watermarks may be potentially vulnerable to so-called “watermark estimation-based attacks.” At least one implementation, described herein, is an advancement over the traditional spread-spectrum watermark detector. At least one implementation, described herein, greatly discourages an estimation-based attack by an adversary. At least one implementation, described herein, determines whether a digital good has likely been subjected to an estimation-based attack and, at least, approximately reverses such attack. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter relates to a computer-implemented architecture that can provide a non-invasive comparative shopping tool, such as a browser plug-in. For example, the plug-in can determine whether a web user is currently visiting a purchase page, thus indicating that the web user is likely to be interested in purchasing items online. Upon making this determination, the plug-in can display a non-invasive listing (that can be quickly and conveniently dismissed) of comparable items at favorable prices (or with favorable features, etc.) that are available for purchase at other web sites. In addition, the plug-in can communicate with a data store, e.g., by way of the web, in order to help make various determination as well as to receive the listing of comparable items.

Abstract: Exemplary systems and methods implement an exemplary visual perception model. This model can be implemented in such applications as imaging, compression, denoising, annotation of hi-fidelity images, etc. In one implementation a perceptual filter estimates an entropy statistic and a standard deviation statistic associated with each pixel of an image, then mixes the entropy statistic and the standard deviation statistic to map an estimation of human perceptual tolerance to noise or alteration in parts of the image. In one application, metadata may be added to an image via a system of synergistic watermarks, in which the watermarks strengthen each other and are placed according to the noise tolerance of the pixels in order to maintain hi-fidelity of the image.

Abstract: A method includes forming a feature vector associated with an iris of an individual using a transform operation including converting an iris image into a log-polar image, scaling one or more samples in the log-polar image according to a Fourier-Mellin transform, and performing a Fourier transform on the scaled samples. The method involves forming an iris digest based on the feature vector, and creating a biometric identifier based on the iris digest. A system includes an iris scanner, an iris analyzer that forms an image of a human iris wherein the presence of eyelashes in the image is minimized, forms a feature vector associated with the iris image using a modified Fourier-Mellin transform, and compresses the feature vector into an iris digest.

Abstract: A method includes forming a feature vector associated with an iris of an individual using a transform operation including converting an iris image into a log-polar image, scaling one or more samples in the log-polar image according to a Fourier-Mellin transform, and performing a Fourier transform on the scaled samples. The method involves forming an iris digest based on the feature vector, and creating a biometric identifier based on the iris digest. A system includes an iris scanner, an iris analyzer that forms an image of a human iris wherein the presence of eyelashes in the image is minimized, forms a feature vector associated with the iris image using a modified Fourier-Mellin transform, and compresses the feature vector into an iris digest.

Abstract: Methods, systems, devices and/or storage media for passwords. An exemplary method tiles an image, associates an index with each tile and optionally determines offsets for select tiles. Further, the tiling optionally relies on probability and/or entropy. An exemplary password system includes an image; a grid associated with the image, the grid composed of polygons; an index associated with each polygon; and an offset associated with each polygon wherein password identification relies on one or more indices and one or more offsets.