Microsoft's Operating System Research Articles

Comparative Analysis of Various Ensemble Algorithms for Computer Malware Prediction

By 2022 it is estimated that 29 billion devices have been connected to the internet so that cybercrime will become a major threat. One of the most common forms of cybercrime is infection with malicious software (malware) designed to harm end users. Microsoft has the highest number of vulnerabilities among software companies, with the Microsoft operating system (Windows) contributing to the largest vulnerabilities at 68.85%. Malware infection research is mostly done when malware has infected a user's device. This study uses the opposite approach, which is to predict the potential for malware infection on the user's device before the infection occurs. Similar studies still use single algorithms, while this study uses ensemble algorithms that are more resistant to bias-variance trade-off. This study builds models from data on computer features that affect the possibility of malware infection on computer devices with Microsoft Windows operating system using ensemble algoritms, such as Bagging Classifier, Random Forest, Light Gradient Boosting Machine, Extreme Gradient Boosting Machine, Category Boosting, and Stacking Classifier. The best model is Stacking Classifier, which is a combination of Light Gradient Boosting Machine and Category Boosting Classifier, with training and test results of 0.70665 and 0.64694. Important features have also been identified as a reference for taking policies to protect user devices from malware infections.

AVATAR therapy: a promising new approach for persistent distressing voices.

AVATAR therapy: a promising new approach for persistent distressing voices.

Pilot Study of a Radiation Oncology Telemedicine Platform

Purpose: A pilot study was undertaken to develop an integrated telemedicine platform for radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and its regional sites. The platform consisted of a computer system with simultaneous display of multiple live data portals including 1) video-conferencing between physicians, 2) radiology, and 3) radiation treatment-planning system (RTPS). Methods and Materials: Two MSKCC regional centers were set up with a widescreen monitor, a dedicated computer, and a web camera with microphone. Each computer ran a Microsoft operating system, utilized video-conferencing software, and connected to the MSKCC Ethernet. This allowed for access to the health information system, radiology (web-based picture archiving and communication systems), RTPS, shared network drives and the internet. Results: After 3 months, physicians at two MSKCC sites were successfully able to implement the proposed telemedicine platform. A small sample of cases (prostate, breast, head and neck, and anal cases) were tested. Radiology images, radiation treatment volumes and plans, and portal images were reviewed. Side-by-side comparison of contouring techniques was performed. The platform allowed physicians to remotely review details of cases efficiently. The interactions of the telemedicine platform improved clinical understanding of each case and often resulted in contouring changes. Conclusion: From this experience, we feel that telemedicine could have a significant clinical impact on patient care, especially at centers with satellite clinics. The future goal of the system will be the development of a virtual tumor board for radiation oncologists. We envision the simultaneous display of multiple clinical components, including face photo, pathology, tumor images/videos of procedures, radiology, RTPS, and anatomy/contouring databases, on one screen surface.

Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy Robert W.McChesney. New York: The New Press, 2013.

Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy Robert W. McChesney. New York: New Press, 2013.In this thought-provoking book, McChesney addresses the relationship between economic power and the digital world, focusing almost exclusively on the United States yet recognizing that virtually all the issues he raises are global and appear in varying degrees worldwide. Many of the most important policy fights over the Internet are international or transnational in character. Moreover, US Internet giants are at the commanding heights of both US and world capitalism, while the US government-supposedly working to regulate these digital corporations at home-generally acts as their powerful advocate abroad. author aims to go beyond most analyses of the Internet that fluctuate between celebratory and skeptical views of cyberspace and, with some exceptions, have one major flaw that severely diminishes the value of their work: they fail to ground their assessments of the Internet in political economy. This means they do not recognize the importance of the really existing capitalism in effectively deand reregulating, manipulating, and surreptitiously monitoring digital communication.In his earlier book Rich Media, Poor Democracy (1999) McChesney presented a persuasive argument that the media, far from providing a foundation for freedom and democracy, had become a significant antidemocratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. book addressed the corporate media explosion and the corresponding implosion of public life that characterized those years. He questioned the assumption that a society saturated by commercial information choices such as the United States is by definition a democratic one. In Digital Disconnect, he updates this analysis in light of recent advances of the digital age. He points out that today an oligopoly of a handful of giant firms dominates the political economy of the Internet. Google, for example, holds nearly seventy percent of the search-engine market and has an impressive ninety-seven percent share of the mobile search market, while Microsoft's operating system continues to be used on over ninety percent of the world's computers. And four companies control about ninety percent of the US wireless market, two of which-AT&T and Verizon-control sixty percent and have become a classic duopoly, in which the smart business policy is to imitate the other firm. author argues that the sharp decline in the enforcement of antitrust violations, the increase in patents on digital technology, and the creation of walled gardens of proprietary control of information (fueling monopolistic pricing systems), as well as supporting and enabling government policies on a range of issues (involving reregulation and taxation strictly to serve the largest corporate interests and considerable subsidies to media corporations) have made the Internet a place of rampant commercialism.The profitability of the digital mega-firms is predicated on establishing proprietary systems for which they control access and the terms of the relationship rather than the idea of an Internet as open as possible. McChesney contends: The Internet has been subjected to the capital-accumulation process, which has a clear logic of its own, inimical to much of the democratic potential of digital communication. What seems to be an increasingly open public sphere, removed from the world of commodity exchange, seems to be morphing into a private sphere of increasingly closed, proprietary, even monopolistic markets. extent of this capitalist colonization of the Internet has not been as obtrusive as it might have been, because the vast reaches of cyberspace have continued to permit noncommercial utilization, although increasingly on the margins (97).The corporate media sector has done its utmost during much of the past fifteen years to limit the openness and egalitarianism of the Internet. …

Performance Evaluation of Recent Windows Operating Systems

The primary goal of most OSs (Operating Systems) is the efficient use of computer systems software and hardware resources. Since Windows OSs are most widely used OS for personal computers, they need to satisfy needs of all different kind of computer systems users. In comparison with Windows XP, new versions of the Windows OS; namely Windows Vista and Windows 7, introduce a number of new features and enhancements. Furthermore, performance improvement was imposed as one of the key design goals for both Windows Vista and Windows 7. This paper presents a performance evaluation of three latest versions of the Microsoft OS for personal computers; namely Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. OS performance measurement is done by means of a set of benchmark applications in the controlled environment. To ensure accurate, reliable and repeatable performance measurement results, we have created a performance measurement process and a performance evaluation model. Special emphasis is placed on evaluation areas with the greatest impact on the performance: CPU scheduling, memory management, graphic subsystem management, hard disk drive management and network performance. To determine the Windows OSs performance in different environments, performance measurement is done in three experiments. Experimental results indicate that Windows Vista and Windows 7 have several performance improvements on the stand-alone high-end computer system, but Windows XP outperforms Windows Vista and Windows 7 on the stand-alone low-end computer system. Furthermore, on network computer system Windows Vista and Windows 7 show network performance improvements mostly for the traffic with medium-sized packets.

Managing Security Risks With 80001

Healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs, or hospitals) will soon begin to use IEC 800011:2010 to assist them in managing risks associated with medical IT networks—IT networks in their facilities that incorporate medical devices. Recent attention has been given to the dangers of and poor outcomes occasionally experienced when in-hospital interconnection of medical devices is performed without due care. Cooper and Eagles related how the new standard will help to provide safer, more effective, and more secure operation of a medical IT network. Of course, the problems of incorporating a medical device onto an IT network are not confined to hospitals. With the global movement toward electronic medical records, it is likely that soon even the single practitioner may have a fairly sophisticated network as an integral part of the practice’s infrastructure. It will be unlikely that the smaller practices will have the resources to maintain an aggressive cybervigilance stance and might be grateful for much of the complexity associated with the incorporation of medical devices into their infrastructure to be managed by a transparent, open process. One of the first challenges in managing risk is assembling information essential to the initial assessment of risk. For medical devices, this effort involves obtaining documentation and understanding of the device’s intended use, instructions for use, security disclosures, and any other safety or effectiveness disclosures that might be possible. Similar documents must be obtained or created for the target IT network where the information sources may be internal or from both internal service providers and from IT vendors. This paper discusses the nature and use of security risk disclosures under IEC 80001-1 with an emphasis on the use of common terminology to group together and discuss the security capabilities and/or requirements for medical devices that are risk managed during the entire life cycle of connection to the medical IT network. It does not assume nor promote any particular security controls framework for the HDO or medical device manufacturer (MDM). Instead, it simply outlines a grouping of security capabilities of the medical device that are relevant to securing the IT network connected device throughout its life cycle. The article is an overview of an upcoming Technical Report from the IEC (publication likely in late 2011) and provides some information that may change before the release of the final report. However, we hope it provides an overview for HDOs, both big and small, to start to think about organizing their IT network risk management activities to include security Managing Security Risks With 80001

'Abstract idea' exception to patent-eligible subject matter clarified

'Abstract idea' exception to patent-eligible subject matter clarified

Pilot Study of a Radiation Oncology Telemedicine Platform

Purpose: A pilot study was undertaken to develop an integrated telemedicine platform for radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and its regional sites. The platform consisted of a computer system with simultaneous display of multiple live data portals including 1) video-conferencing between physicians, 2) radiology, and 3) radiation treatment-planning system (RTPS). Methods and Materials: Two MSKCC regional centers were set up with a widescreen monitor, a dedicated computer, and a web camera with microphone. Each computer ran a Microsoft operating system, utilized video-conferencing software, and connected to the MSKCC Ethernet. This allowed for access to the health information system, radiology (web-based picture archiving and communication systems), RTPS, shared network drives and the internet. Results: After 3 months, physicians at two MSKCC sites were successfully able to implement the proposed telemedicine platform. A small sample of cases (prostate, breast, head and neck, and anal cases) were tested. Radiology images, radiation treatment volumes and plans, and portal images were reviewed. Side-by-side comparison of contouring techniques was performed. The platform allowed physicians to remotely review details of cases efficiently. The interactions of the telemedicine platform improved clinical understanding of each case and often resulted in contouring changes. Conclusion: From this experience, we feel that telemedicine could have a significant clinical impact on patient care, especially at centers with satellite clinics. The future goal of the system will be the development of a virtual tumor board for radiation oncologists. We envision the simultaneous display of multiple clinical components, including face photo, pathology, tumor images/videos of procedures, radiology, RTPS, and anatomy/contouring databases, on one screen surface.

Digital Games Distribution: The Presence of the Past and the Future of Obsolescence

Digital Games Distribution: The Presence of the Past and the Future of Obsolescence

Living with Windows Vista

This paper reviews the different features of the Microsoft operating system called Vista. Using the beta version called Vista Ultimate, the authors tested the system's user interface, security, Web browsing, search, and networking capabilities. Despite the absence of the long promised file system called Windows future storage (WinFS), the Vista appears more seamless and elegant, and is significantly faster with a more intuitive navigation. It also demonstrated improved security, network capability and robustness.

Does a Platform Monopolist Want Competition?

We consider a software vendor first selling a monopoly platform and then an application running on this platform. He may face competition by an entrant in the applications market. The platform monopolist can benefit from competition for three reasons. First, his profits from the platform increase. Second, competition serves as a credible commitment to lower prices for applications. Third, higher expected product diversity may lead to higher demand for his application. Results carry over to non-software platforms and, partially, to upstream and downstream firms. The model also explains why Microsoft Office is priced significantly higher than Microsoft's operating system.

Going to extremes [extreme programming

Unless your organisation always delivers on time, has low staff turnover and is never surprised by the final cost or quality of its software, there is probably something wrong with the way you develop your products. Our industry has spent several decades trying to resolve this problem and yet a recent survey of 200 software projects showed ongoing problems. One development methodology, Extreme Programming generally shortened to XP and not to be confused with the Microsoft operating system, is creating interest is because it offers some radical alternatives to traditional software engineering principles and has shown its ability to create a reliable, sustainable and predictable process in certain types of projects. XP is intended as a process for small team delivering important business software in a rapidly changing world and over the last few years have demonstrated its suitability for such purpose.

Windows 2000 security: A postmortem analysis

Introduction After initially releasing Windows 2000 (W2K) in February 2000, Microsoft touted it as a secure operating system, one that was far improved over its predecessor, Windows NT(WNT). Yet even before Microsoft released W2K the software giant announced that it would release Service Pack 1 (SP1) for this operating system. The information security community immediately wondered whether the claims about the much improved security in W2K were true; many events and findings since then have reinforced this doubt. After a reign of three years as Microsoft's flagship operating system, last year Microsoft rolled out its newest server operating system, Windows Server 2003 (WS2003), signaling the end of an era for the W2K operating system. Windows XP (WXP) had already supplanted W2K Professional as the newest workstation operating system several years before. This is not to say that nobody uses W2K any more—to the contrary. But as W2K continues to increasingly take a proverbial back seat to newer Microsoft operating systems, now is a good time to take a retroactive look at W2K from a security viewpoint. Was it a success from a security perspective? What were its major failings and why? This paper addresses these issues.

Technological dimensions of privacy in Asia

Users in Asian countries (where adoption of broadband Internet technology is more widespread than anywhere else in the world) harbor notions of computer privacy that differ somewhat from those that are prevalent in Europe and the US. The spate of viruses and worms that has laid bare the security inadequacies of Microsoft's operating system and application software has exacted a particularly heavy toll on computer users in Asia. However, as well as posing challenges to privacy, technology also offers new opportunities for increasing privacy. Doug Tygar, computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, examines recent advances in security and privacy research, and suggests that the Asian computing environment represents a uniquely suitable test bed for new privacy technologies. He also highlights the increased popularity in Asia of Linux, the open-source operating system—due in part to its stability, but also to the fact that users need not fear hidden “backdoors” that might compromise security.

Crossover: online pests plaguing the off line world

During the past 10 years, several technological trends have emerged that significantly and positively affected today's world. Two in particular are noteworthy: the apparently unbounded desire to network any and all devices and deployment of Microsoft's operating systems in everything from consumer PCs and business servers to embedded devices. We could well see the telecommunications boom; the rise of the Internet, and the rush to connect everything to it as one of humanity's milestones, not far removed from, that of the invention of the telephone or telegraph. Computer networking, over the Internet, particularly, has democratized the publishing of information, made massive amounts of information and services accessible to the general public, and enabled new business models. But everything has a dark side. Along with its benefits, the Internet has brought about such things as cybercrime, computer worms, online fraud, spam, and denial-of-service attacks, among other online unpleasantness. This down side is considered in the article.

Don't Disintegrate Microsoft (Yet)

During the Clinton Administration, the United States sought to disintegrate Microsoft to remedy the firm's purported monopolistic conduct. The remedy proposed by the United States would have divided Microsoft into two firms. One, the Oppco, would have retained the firm's operating system business. The other firm, the Appco, would have retained the firm's business, including Internet Explorer and Microsoft's Office Suite. The United States did not rebut the presumption that the integration of Microsoft's operating system and business was procompetitive. Instead, the government claimed that disintegration of Microsoft would lower the so-called applications barrier to entry, a barrier that Microsoft's unlawful conduct purportedly raised. Most importantly, the government claimed that an independent Appco would probably transform Microsoft's Office Suite into a form of middleware, the existence of which would lower the applications barrier to entry and thus facilitate the emergence of operating systems competitive with Windows. This paper argues that the district court erred when it granted the government's petition for disintegration. Simply put, the court's factual findings did not support any element of the story supporting the government's request for relief. There was, for instance, no finding that Microsoft raised the barrier; that barrier existed before, during, and after the conduct at issue in this case. Similarly, there was no finding that Microsoft unlawfully maintained that barrier, i.e., that, but for Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct, middleware would have emerged and lowered the barrier to entry. Moreover, there was no finding that an independent Appco would, in fact, have the ability or incentive to transform Microsoft's Office Suite into a form of middleware. Finally, there was no finding that Appco would be the only source of middleware capable of lowering the barrier to entry. The absence of the sort of findings necessary to justify disintegration was a necessary consequence of the government's litigation strategy. The government did not undertake to prove that Microsoft's conduct actually reduced social welfare. Instead, the United States chose to rely upon outmoded antitrust rules that reduced its burden at trial. For instance, the government relied upon the per se rule against tying contracts, which bans certain ties regardless of their competitive effect. Moreover, the government relied upon precedents suggesting that non-standard contracts entered by a monopolist are presumptively unlawful, regardless of their actual effect. By lightening its load at the trial stage, the United States deprived itself of the sort of factual findings necessary to justify the destruction of presumptively beneficial integration. Absent further findings that validate the government's story, Microsoft should remain intact.

One Monopoly Is Better Than Two: Antitrust Policy and Microsoft

The Department of Justice recent case against Microsoft is that it should not be allowed to aggressively maintain control over the internet browser market with the objective of preventing the internet from becoming the platform that could ultimately destroy Microsoft's operating system market. The aim of this paper is not to attack the Department of Justice case. Rather, it is to argue that for consumers one monopoly dominating both the operating system and applications is better than two separate monopolies. In our model we integrate Cournot's theory of two goods that are jointly used in the production of a third composite good with the fixed-proportion model. Utilizing our model we develop a possible explanation for Microsoft's actions – protection of its monopoly profits in the operating systems package market. Additionally we show that the price of the final product is lower if one firm monopolizes all markets. Consequently, the ordered split-up of Microsoft by Judge Thomas P. Jackson, aiming at creating two separate companies, one that will produce the windows and the other the operating systems, will harm consumers.

U.S. v. Microsoft: Breaking Up Should Be Hard To Do

After two years of litigation, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the 19 states suing Microsoft have proposed draconian remedies (Plaintiffs Proposed Final Judgment 2000, hereafter, PPFJ) to address the violations of the Sherman Act found by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson (Conclusions of Law 2000). The centerpiece of the proposal - breaking Microsoft into two companies, with one owning the operating systems and the other with applications and everything else - bears virtually no relationship to the anticompetitive acts found by Judge Jackson. It is based on new reasoning offered by Plaintiffs' economic experts, none of whom testified during the liability phase. Moreover, the underlying logic conflicts with the theories used to find Microsoft liable. This paper analyzes the likely consequences of the proposed remedy. In addition, the author considers a remedy offered by Robert Litan and William Nordhaus - a remedy that would split rights to Microsoft's operating systems among three separate companies, in addition to breaking off applications. The next section provides a framework for analysis and a brief review of the evidence of consumer harm. The author then reviews the DOJ remedy and the proposal by Litan, Noll, Nordhaus and Scherer (Litan et al. 2000, Litan and Nordhaus 2000). Finally, concluding remarks are offered.

DOS Kapital: Has antitrust action against Microsoft created value in the computer industry?

Antitrust enforcement that efficiently constrains Microsoft's behavior benefits firms supplying complements to and/or substitutes for Microsoft's operating system and applications software. However, from 1991 through 1997, 29 reports of federal antitrust enforcement action against Microsoft were accompanied by declines in the value of an index of 159 computer industry firms (excluding Microsoft). The mean loss to those firms exceeded $1 billion per event. Eight retreats or setbacks in enforcement were associated with increased computer sector value. Thus, financial markets reveal compelling evidence against the joint hypothesis that (a) Microsoft conduct is anticompetitive and (b) antitrust policy enforcement produces net efficiency gains.

DOS Workstations

LOTUS ADD‐INS Lotus 1–2–3 has been on the software bestseller lists for years and years. It seems never to leave the top spot. When it was first introduced for the IBM computer, it was written for MS‐DOS, Microsoft's operating system. Lotus had as much to do with the success of MS‐DOS and IBM's new machine as any other program. Indeed, it was history repeating itself. Visicalc had done the same thing for the Apple II.