Abstract: A word game requires participants to determine a word based on one or more attributes, including one or more definitions, information about the linguistic origin of the word and its components, use in one or more sentences, number of letters, a letter in the word, and one or more parts of speech. After determining the word, the participant may be required to spell it.

Abstract: Techniques are described for use with social networks and associated access information, such as access control lists, indicating which users are allowed to access the social networks. The social networks represent relationships between users. The social networks and access control lists may be represented in a graph which is traversed in connection with performing different operations using the social networks.

Abstract: Mechanisms in which reliable communication is enabled without having to wait for a final acknowledgement message. An upper layer issues a send request. The message is then placed in a send queue. If data in the send queue is less than (or equal to) a predetermined threshold at this stage, the packet is sent, a successful transmission report is returned to the caller, and the data is copied to an internal buffer for use in case transmission was unsuccessful. If the amount of data in the send queue is more than that predetermined threshold, the packets are sent. Subsequently, each time an acknowledgement is received, the determination is repeated until the amount of unacknowledged data in the send queue is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold. Then, the successful transmission report is returned to the caller.

Abstract: Techniques are described for use with social networks and associated access information, such as access control lists, indicating which users are allowed to access the social networks. The social networks represent relationships between users. The social networks and access control lists may be represented in a graph which is traversed in connection with performing different operations using the social networks.

Abstract: A computer system to efficiently process packets received over a network operating in accordance with a layered protocol. The system includes logic that provides combined processing to determine whether a received packet complies with multiple requirements of the layered protocol. Combined processing determines compliance with requirements at more than one of the protocol layers of the layered protocol. If the combined processing does not verify compliance with all of the requirements of a protocol layer, those requirements may be verified in a layered fashion following the combined processing. In this way, greater efficiencies may be achieved through the combined processing of requirements from multiple protocol layers, but advantages of implementing a layered protocol in a modular fashion may still be retained.

Abstract: A method and system for tracking context information of a service provider and interceptors of service provider requests is provided. An interceptor modifies a portion of service provider context information to reference interceptor context information associated with a client. When the client requests a service of the service provider, the client provides the modified service provider context information along with the request. The interceptor uses the reference of the modified portion of the service provider context information to retrieve its context information. The interceptor then restores the modified portion of the service provider context information to the original unmodified portion, which the interceptor retained as part of its context information. The interceptor then forwards the request along with the original service provider context information to the service provider.

Abstract: A new method and framework for scheduling receive-side processing of data streams received from a remote requesting client by a multiprocessor system computer is disclosed. The method receives data packets from the remote requesting client via a network and, for each data packet, applies a cryptographically secure hashing function to portions of the received data packet yielding a hash value. The method further applies the hash value to a processor selection policy to identify a processor in the multiprocessor system as a selected processor to perform receive-side processing of the data packet. The method queues the received data packet for processing by the selected processor and invokes a procedure call to initiate processing of the data packet.

Abstract: A unified congestion notification mechanism can detect congestion at a recipient device either directly, such as via an explicit indicator, or indirectly, such as via dropped packets. Such congestion can then be indicated to the sending device either by leveraging an existing congestion notification mechanism, including by spoofing expected communications, or by creating a new congestion notification mechanism. Additionally, modifications to lossless protocols, such as TCP/IP can adapt them for use with streaming data while still implementing the unified congestion notification mechanism by eliminating retransmissions either as a result of the retransmission timeout or as a result of information conveyed as part of the acknowledgement packets.

Abstract: The present invention protects against denial of service attacks on lookup or hash tables used to store state information for data transfer protocols used to transfer data between two host computers. Two hash tables are provided for holding state information, one for verified remote entities (i.e., those where the remote local address can be traced to a host), and one for unverified entities. A cryptographically secure hash is applied to packets from unverified remote entities, since these are the most likely to attempt attacks on the hash tables. The performance of the local server for packets from verified remote entities, however, is maintained.

Abstract: Mechanisms in which reliable communication is enabled without having to wait for a final acknowledgement message. An upper layer issues a send request. The message is then placed in a send queue. If data in the send queue is less than (or equal to) a predetermined threshold at this stage, the packet is sent, a successful transmission report is returned to the caller, and the data is copied to an internal buffer for use in case transmission was unsuccessful. If the amount of data in the send queue is more than that predetermined threshold, the packets are sent. Subsequently, each time an acknowledgement is received, the determination is repeated until the amount of unacknowledged data in the send queue is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold. Then, the successful transmission report is returned to the caller.