Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for clustering documents. A plurality of documents are identified from a set of documents, where the identified documents have the same top N terms by term frequency score for an integer N. A pattern string that is satisfied by at least a subset of the identified documents is identified. A document cluster is formed from at least the subset of the identified documents.

Abstract: Systems, methods and computer readable media for identifying transient paths within websites. Transient paths can be identified, for example, by identifying a path associated with known transient content and determining that the path exists on other pages associated with the website. If the path exists in other web pages associated with the website, the content associated with the path can be identified as transient content.

Abstract: Systems, methods and computer readable media for identifying transient content in web pages. Transient content can be identified, for example, by parsing different versions of the same web page into tokens, and inserting fingerprints associated with the tokens into data structures. The data structures can be compared to each other to identify differences between the web pages, thereby identifying transient content associated with the web pages.

Abstract: A recovery process allows a recovering replica in a replicated data storage system to recover from a current replica the changes to the data that it has missed during a failure while, at the same time, the system is processing new requests issued by the source. Sequence numbers, assigned by the source to write requests and stored by each replica in association with the data item that the write request modifies, are used by the recovery process to determine when a replica has missed one or more write requests and requires recovery. During recovery, the recovering replica ignores all requests directly received from the source, and replaces the contents of a data item with the data received from the current replica only if the newly received data item has a higher sequence number than the corresponding sequence number of the data item already stored in the recovering replica. It also updates data items in response to new write requests that are forwarded to it by the current replica.

Abstract: A special-purpose file system is provided which includes a combination of services and features which improve the performance of applications employing caches, such as caching web proxies. This file system also provides a file system cache which can be used as a general high-performance file system cache for file systems which need a cache. The services and features include collocating files together on a disk; keeping file meta-data in memory; compressing file names to hash values for reference; using a flat naming scheme for files; providing background daemons that pack files into clusters and clean disk and main memory space; and implementing a user-level library. The file system reduces access to related disk files, eliminates disk operations that are needed to maintain directory and meta-data information, and avoids multiple buffering of file data, and saves and efficiently manages disk and main memory space.

Abstract: A data replication system is disclosed in which replication functionalities between a host computer, an interconnecting computer network, and a plurality of storage devices are separated into host elements and a plurality of storage elements. The host computer is connected to one or more host elements. The host element is responsible for replicating data between the storage devices, which are each connected to an associated storage element, and for maintaining data consistency. Further, the host element instructs a storage element whose associated storage device does not contain up-to-date data to recover from another one of the plurality of storage elements and its associated storage device. The storage elements and their associated storage devices may be located in any combination of diverse or same geographical sites in a manner to ensure sufficient replication in the event of a site or equipment failure.

Abstract: A protocol and system for securely communicating a financial transaction between a customer and a merchant and a distributed computer network employing the protocol or system. A central authority having a central authority private key Ksca assigns a customer account (“CACCT”) to the customer and a merchant account (“MACCT”) to the merchant. The customer has a customer public key Kpc; the merchant has a merchant public key Km.

Abstract: A recovery process allows a recovering replica in a replicated data storage system to recover from a current replica the changes to the data that it has missed during a failure while, at the same time, the system is processing new requests issued by the source. Sequence numbers, assigned by the source to write requests and stored by each replica in association with the data item that the write request modifies, are used by the recovery process to determine when a replica has missed one or more write requests and requires recovery. During recovery, the recovering replica ignores all requests directly received from the source, and replaces the contents of a data item with the data received from the current replica only if the newly received data item has a higher sequence number than the corresponding sequence number of the data item already stored in the recovering replica. It also updates data items in response to new write requests that are forwarded to it by the current replica.

Abstract: A uniform application programming interface (API) provides efficient generation and control of resource reservations so as to ensure a desired quality of service (QoS) for applications running on an operating system of a computer system. The uniform API is based on a hierarchical file system which associates resource reservations with references to shared objects, rather than with the objects themselves. The uniform API permits the use of a variety of different proportional share schedulers for controlling access to physical resources, e.g., CPU, memory, disk, network interfaces, etc. of the computer system. The hierarchical file system includes a separate directory for each independently-scheduled physical resource of the computer system. A parent of the resource reservation in the hierarchical file system is either a root node of the file system or another reservation for the same resource.

Abstract: A computer operating system that allows legacy applications to be run automatically with quality of service (QoS) guarantees matching required QoS performance levels. In accordance with the invention, files have QoS requirement attributes that can be set-by users. Additionally, users may interpose a requirement broker between a given legacy application and the operating system. The requirement broker may be in the form of a modified version of a library that is dynamically linked with applications at load time. The requirement broker intercepts certain system calls and automatically requests from the system QoS guarantees in accordance with the QoS requirement attributes of the accessed files, whether local or remote.

Abstract: Received packets are processed utilizing protocol processing stages in an operating system, in accordance with a technique referred to as signaled receiver processing (SRP). A given protocol processing stage uses a next stage submit (NSS) function to pass a packet to a subsequent protocol processing stage. Each protocol processing stage is associated with one or more sockets. Each socket is associated with the input function of a protocol processing stage, an unprocessed input queue (UIQ) that contains packets destined to the socket but not yet processed by the socket's input function, and a list of owner processes, which expect input from the socket. NSS uses a multi-stage early demultiplexing (MED) function, which determines a packet's next destination socket, based on the stage currently processing the packet and on information contained in the packet.

Abstract: A computer operating system in which transfer of control of executing threads between protection domains is implemented using specific portals dedicated to the particular transfer of control between two protection domains. The transfer of control may also include parameter manipulation. A server registers a portal specification with a portal manager, the portal specification defining the behavior of portals which transfer control to the server. Thereafter, when a client application desires service from the server, the client application requests instantiation of a portal which will transfer control of an execution thread from the client application protection domain to the server protection domain. Upon receipt of the request, the portal manager dynamically generates portal code and updates a portal table associated with the client application, thus instantiating the portal.

Abstract: A data replication system is disclosed in which replication functionalities between a host computer, an interconnecting computer network, and a plurality of storage devices are separated into host elements and a plurality of storage elements. The host computer is connected to one or more host elements. The host element is responsible for replicating data between the storage devices, which are each connected to an associated storage element, and for maintaining data consistency. Further, the host element instructs a storage element whose associated storage device does not contain up-to-date data to recover from another one of the plurality of storage elements and its associated storage device. The storage elements and their associated storage devices may be located in any combination of diverse or same geographical sites in a manner to ensure sufficient replication in the event of a site or equipment failure.

Abstract: A system for, and method of, generating an alias source address for an electronic mail (“e-mail”) message having a real source address and a destination address and a computer network, such as the Internet, including the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes an alias source address generator that employs the destination address to generate the alias source address. The system further includes an alias source address substitutor that substitutes the alias source address for the real source address. This removes the real source address from the e-mail message and thereby renders the sender, located at the real source address, anonymous. Further-described are systems and methods for forwarding reply e-mail and filtering reply e-mail based on alias source address.

Abstract: A system for, and method of, generating an extended source electronic mail (e-mail) address for use between a sender and a recipient and systems and methods for creating e-mail messages having a destination-dependent extended source address structure. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) an extension generator module, associated with the sender, that generates a valid extended source address that is based on the identity of the recipient, (2) an e-mail transmitter, associated with the extension generator module, that transmits the e-mail message containing the valid extended source address to the recipient and (3) a message receiver module, associated with the extension generator module, that classifies incoming e-mail messages based on valid extended source addresses.

Abstract: A special-purpose file system is provided which includes a combination of services and features which improve the performance of applications employing caches, such as caching web proxies. This file system also provides a file system cache which can be used as a general high-performance file system cache for file systems which need a cache. The services and features include collocating files together on a disk; keeping file meta-data in memory; compressing file names to hash values for reference; using a flat naming scheme for files; providing background daemons that pack files into clusters and clean disk and main memory space; and implementing a user-level library. The file system reduces access to related disk files, eliminates disk operations that are needed to maintain directory and meta-data information, and avoids multiple buffering of file data, and saves and efficiently manages disk and main memory space.

Abstract: A method and system for servicing disk I/O requests from domains which have been guaranteed minimum quality of disk service maintains I/O requests for each domain are in separate queues. The queues are serviced by a disk scheduler which selects requests from the queues in accordance with a fair queuing scheduling algorithm that considers the estimated time required to service the request at the head of a queue with regard for the size of the input or output associated with the request, the proportion of disk bandwidth assigned to the particular domain, and the state of the other queues.

Abstract: A system for detecting the movement of a device that receives a signal broadcast from a relative fixed position, such as a set-top terminal in a Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) system, is disclosed, using the phase shift of the broadcast signal, as received by the device. A set-top terminal or similar mechanism restricts access to the transmitted multimedia information using stored decryption keys. If a set-top terminal is moved, the distance between the set-top terminal and the satellite will change, thereby causing a measurable phase shift in the signal received by the set-top terminal. The set-top terminal periodically or intermittently records a sequence of bits received from the satellite and provides the recorded bits to the service provider server for analysis. If the set-top terminal has been moved, the recorded bits will shift.

Abstract: A new scheduling method and policy for shared (server) resources, such as the CPU or disk memory of a multiprogrammed data processor. The scheduling is referred to as Move-To-Rear List Scheduling and it provides a cumulative service guarantee and well as more traditional guarantees such as fairness (proportional sharing) and bounded delay. In typical operation, a list is maintained for a server of processes seeking service from the server. Processes are admitted to the list only when maximum capacity constraints are not violated, and once on the list, are served in a front-to-back order. After receiving service, or upon the occurrence of other events, the position of the process on the list may be changed.

Abstract: For use with a network having server sites capable of being browsed by users based on identifiers received into the server sites and personal to the users, alternative proxy systems for providing substitute identifiers to the server sites that allow the users to browse the server sites anonymously via the proxy system. A central proxy system includes computer-executable routines that process site-specific substitute identifiers constructed from data specific to the users, that transmits the substitute identifiers to the server sites, that retransmits browsing commands received from the users to the server sites, and that removes portions of the browsing commands that would identify the users to the server sites. The foregoing functionality is performed consistently by the central proxy system during subsequent visits to a given server site as the same site specific substitute identifiers are reused.