Thursday, September 25, 2014

"Email Forgery Analysis..."

Email Forgery Analysis in Computer Forensics

Emails are usually at the top of the list when it comes to potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI) sources. They often capture critical business correspondence, agreements, business documents, internal company discussions etc. They are also one of the most frequently forged document types. They can be altered in many ways such as by backdating, changing the sender, recipients or message contents. Fortunately, email servers and client computers often contain various metadata which can be used for forensic email forgery analysis.

One of these metadata fields is the Conversation Index property. I previously wrote about E-mail Conversation Index Analysis and how it can be useful in forensic analysis of e-mails, particularly email forgery analysis. In this post, we will put that weapon to use — along with other computer forensics techniques — and take a close look at a sample fraudulent email message.

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Conclusion

As the use of electronic documents as evidence in legal proceedings is becoming more and more popular, so is email forgery, electronic document date forgery and other electronic fraud. However, electronic documents usually contain numerous metadata fields, rendering most forgery attempts discoverable. Email transport headers and other metadata such as the Conversation Index, Sent Time and Delivery Time Microsoft Outlook Messaging API (MAPI) Properties are just a few of the numerous metadata fields computer forensics experts can use during email forgery analysis."

There's some great information in this post (and linked ones) and is perfect for you CSI guys (and those of you in the Legal/ESI/eDiscovery world).

Understanding a Sentiment Analysis Engine

Microsoft Lystavlen - the Online display board - Understanding the Sentiment Engine in Microsoft Social Listening

Sentiment Analysis

If you want to see how the public perceives your company or product, you can use sentiment analysis, which determines people’s attitudes toward a topic. Sentiment analysis reflects the public perception of a post’s content in relation to the keywords that were used to find the post (a post is a eg a Twitter post or a Facebook comment)

Each post that results from your defined search queries is processed by the sentiment engine in the original language and annotated with a calculated sentiment value. Sentiment values are provided for the following languages:

  1. English
  2. German
  3. French
  4. Spanish
  5. Portuguese
  6. Italian

The sentiment value results in a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment for a post. Occasionally, the algorithm identifies positive and negative parts of a sentence and still rates the post as neutral. This happens because the amount of a post’s text identified as positive or negative cancel each other out. A post is also classified as neutral if there are no positive or negative statements detected in it.

Note that the sentiment algorithm is not a self-learning system, even if you can edit any post’s sentiment value in the post list.

Understanding the Sentiment Engine

Lets look closer at the sentiment engine using the example post below, in the context of the search topic "Windows Phone"

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I thought this post a great explanation of Sentiment Analysis, which comes up in my day job now and then. While we don't use the Social Listen or related product, we do use a library that lets us integrate like functionality into our LOB, but e apps, explaining how it works quickly has always been "fun". This post and explanation will come in handy next time...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Comparing Sentiment Analysis REST API's
10 Professionals, 10 views on the coming trends in text analytics

Controlling the email madness, rule your inbox and help others rule theirs with Controlled Vocabulary Outlook Addin

Controlled Vocabulary 

This project provides tools to control the vocabulary of email and meeting communications so that recipients may implement more effective filtering.

Are you a member of an email discussion alias which is out of control? Do you battle to filter the messages? Take a look at the solution provided by this project to bring your alias under control again.

The driving motivation behind this project is that controlled vocabulary is a more effective method of categorizing emails than an open tagging system, which is too subjective.

This project provides an Outlook 2013 and Windows Client to support the adoption of a Controlled Vocabulary.

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In short, think "uber" templating, fast email generating, yet well formed for rule processing, Outlook Addin. For example, here's how the ALM Rangers use it, Controlled Vocabulary 101 … typed at the most stunning office!. It's not a silver bullet, but it might help you reign in the chaos (well a boy can dream anyway... ;).

Adventure Works, 2014

Jimmy May, Aspiring Geek: SQL Server Performance, Best Practices, & Productivity - AdventureWorks 2014 Sample Databases Are Now Available

Recently, SQL Community feedback from twitter prompted me to look in vain for SQL Server 2014 versions of the AdventureWorks sample databases we’ve all grown to know & love.

I searched Codeplex, then used the bing & even the google in an effort to locate them, yet all I could find were samples on different sites highlighting specific technologies, an incomplete collection inconsistent with the experience we users had learned to expect.  I began pinging internally & learned that an update to AdventureWorks wasn’t even on the road map.

Fortunately, SQL Marketing manager Luis Daniel Soto Maldonado (t) lent a sympathetic ear & got the update ball rolling; his direct report Darmodi Komo recently announced the release of the shiny new sample databases for OLTP, DW, Tabular, and Multidimensional models to supplement the extant In-Memory OLTP sample DB.

What Success Looks Like

In my correspondence with the team, here’s how I defined success:

1. Sample AdventureWorks DBs hosted on Codeplex showcasing SQL Server 2014’s latest-&-greatest features, including:

  • In-Memory OLTP (aka Hekaton)
  • Clustered Columnstore
  • Online Operations
  • Resource Governor IO

2. Where it makes sense to do so, consolidate the DBs (e.g., showcasing Columnstore likely involves a separate DW DB)

3. Documentation to support experimenting with these features

As Microsoft Senior SDE Bonnie Feinberg (b) stated, “I think it would be great to see an AdventureWorks for SQL 2014.  It would be super helpful for third-party book authors and trainers.  It also provides a common way to share examples in blog posts and forum discussions, for example.”

Exactly....

Adventure Works 2014 Sample Databases

Adventure Works 2014 sample databases are an upgrade from the 2012 version. To learn how to install the databases, see Readme for Adventure Works 2014 Sample Databases.docx.

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Having training, sample data that is safe to demo and use is always, always, always nice...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Community AdventureWorks on Azure one year later, where you, the community, not only helped keep it going BUT also donated GBP351.49 to War Child charity
Community Driven Read-Only AdventureWorks2012 now available on SQL Azure
103 SQL Server 2005 Samples and AdventureWorks Sample Databases Download

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

.NET Micro Framework gets VS 2013 support and more!

.NET Framework Blog - .NET Micro Framework now supports Visual Studio 2013

Today the .NET Micro Framework team is releasing a beta update of the .NET Micro Framework SDK that adds support for Visual Studio 2013. The release also contains other improvements that will benefit developers and hardware partners, making the install and update experience better.

Check out the .NET Micro Framework Team blog, and the Netmf.com site to learn more about .NET Micro Framework and this release. Read the Microsoft Open Technologies blog to learn more about this open source project and community engagement.

You can download the .NET Micro Framework SDK 4.3.1 (SDK R2 Beta) update from our Codeplex site. Please try it out, provide feedback and start contributing to the open source project.

Supporting for Visual Studio 2013

The .NET Micro Framework SDK now supports Visual Studio 2013. That’s welcome news, since ...

The new approach also helps hardware partners. .NET Micro Framework hardware vendors can now support multiple Visual Studio versions with a given piece of hardware and firmware. That also streamlines the overall experience for app developers, too.

A first glimpse at the upcoming support for Visual Studio “14”

The .NET Micro Framework team is looking ahead and has already started to enable support for Visual Studio “14”....

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.NET Micro Framework is Open Source

The .NET Micro Framework is an open source project from Microsoft, licensed as Apache 2. It is developed by Microsoft engineers assigned to Microsoft Open Technologies and by others in the maker community. Hardware makers are able to use the .NET Micro Framework code from the Codeplex project without any additional license or paying any fee to Microsoft.

Next Steps

The .NET Micro Framework SDK 4.3.1. (R2 Beta) release brings key improvements and updates. ..."

This is very welcome news! In one of my not-so-secret lives, you know I'm a blogger for Microsoft Channel 9's Coding4Fun blog, where every Friday I do a Hardware Friday post (to give everyone something fun to build on the weekend of course!). One of my pet peeves when highlighting .NET Micro Framework projects was the lack of VS 2013 support. One peeve crossed out now. :)

 

Here are some more links of interest;

"Learning to Master Cross-Platform Mobile Development With Xamarin" Free (Name-Email-ware) eBook

Jesse Liberty - Free e-Book: Learning to Master Cross-Platform Mobile Development With Xamarin

The good folks at Falafel have put together all my posts (to date) on  Xamarin and Xamarin Forms into an e-book, which is available free at http://jliberty.me/masteringXamarinBook

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Some snips from the PDF...

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"Microsoft office for you" song

I came across this fan created Microsoft Office song and thought it kind of cute...

Look, Microsoft Virtual Academy has a new look!

Microsoft Virtual Academy - Hello new MVA course experience! Goodbye grey bars of confusion!

Dear MVA learners! On the heels of hitting over 1,000,000 learners who visited just last month, today we unveiled a totally new way for you to experience your MVA learning!

Over the past year many of you told us:

"Your course player was hard to use!"

"Clumsy, cumbersome!"

"I didn't know where to start when I landed on a course."

"Juggling different pages and video players was confusing!"

This new player experience, using HTML5, is designed to help make it easier to get you to the courses you are interested in and allow you to discover and navigate all within a single page.

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I missed this when it was announced earlier this month. I went to MVA today and was impressed with the new look and feel of the Course pages. Short, simple and easy to use, three of my favorite things.

Also somewhat new is that there's now a New Course Feed and News Feed. Now I AM a happy camper!  :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Microsoft Press Free eBooks now have a home in the Microsoft Virtual Academy
//build/ –> //learn/-> //publish/ -> //your free new training sessions/
11 for 12... 11 Free SQL Server 2012 Microsoft Virtual Academy Classes
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) provides free Microsoft Cloud Tech training
Congratulations you can become a Microsoft Licensing Expert and earn MS Licensing Accreditation (no lie)
Developing with HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Jumpstart from the Microsoft Virtual Academy (free and a free exam voucher too!)
8 x 2 = 16 hours of instructor lead virtual Windows Phone 8 Dev training (That's free too!)
"Office 365 for the IT Pro - Platform" course now available on MVA
Microsoft Virtual Academy - Announcing the Release of the ‘Office 365 for the IT Pro – Platform” course to the
WAMVA - Windows Azure Microsoft Virtual Academy courses... (which are free of course)

Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) provides free Microsoft Cloud Tech training

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Groups.io (Email Groups 2.0)=, Mailing lists for the 10's, i.e. not your dad's mailing list service)

Mark Fletcher's Blog - Introducing Groups.io

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But that doesn’t mean that mailing lists can’t improve. And this is where we get back to the unfinished business. Because email groups (the modern version of mailing lists) have stagnated over the past decade. Yahoo Groups and Google Groups both exude the dank air of benign neglect. Google Groups hasn’t been updated in years, and some of Yahoo’s recent changes have actually made Yahoo Groups worse! And yet, millions of people put up with this uncertainty and neglect, because email groups are still one of the best ways to communicate with groups of people. And I have a plan to make them even better.

So today I’m launching Groups.io in beta, to bring email groups into the 21st Century. At launch, we have many features that those other services don’t have, including:

  • Integration with other services, including: Github, Google Hangouts, Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook Pages, and the ability to import Feeds into your groups.
  • Businesses and organizations can have their own private groups on their own subdomain.
  • Better archive organization, using hashtags.
  • Many more email delivery options.
  • The ability to mute threads or hashtags.
  • Fully searchable archives, including searching within attachments.

One other feature that Groups.io has that Yahoo and Google don’t, is a business model that’s not based on showing ads to you. Public groups are completely free on Groups.io. Private groups and organizations are very reasonably priced.

We’re just starting out; following the tradition of new startups everywhere, we’re in Beta. So, as we squash the inevitable bugs and work to make the system even better (based on your feedback!), all features will be free.

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Groups.io

Why You'll Love GROUPS.IO

Powerful features that make email groups more useful.

Great For Organizations

Groups.io is great for your internal discussion lists. Easily create and manage an organization, which is a collection of private groups, through a dedicated Org home page.

Do More With Integrations

Easily integrate Dropbox, Google Hangouts, Feeds, Facebook, Instagram, Github, Email and soon even more services into your group.

Better Archive Organization With Hashtags

Discussions can have assigned hashtags. Archives can be searched by hashtags, and hashtagged conversations can automatically expire.

Only The Messages You Want

Mute threads and keywords, ensuring you only see the messages you're interested in. Take advantage of better email delivery options, including receiving the first message only in each thread or receiving replies only

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While, like most, I have a love-hate relationship with mailing lists, I do think it's pretty cool seeing this new look at them, updated to today's tech.

Monday, September 22, 2014

VS 2013 HOL/ALM VM now with Update 3 (VS 2013.3)

Brian Keller - Now Available: Update 3 refresh of Visual Studio 2013 ALM Virtual Machine

I’m pleased to announce that today we’ve published the Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 ALM Virtual Machine. This includes several updates to the hands-on-labs / demo scripts to show off some of the new capabilities which have been added in Updates 1 – 3.

With the continuous stream of great updates coming to Visual Studio every few months I haven’t been able to update the virtual machine with each new update, so I didn’t publish a new VM for Updates 1 or 2. But with Update 3 we hit critical mass of some great ALM capabilities which demanded an update.

For people who are interested in this level of detail, I’ve included a high-level changelog below which details the updates we’ve made in this version of the VM and labs. You can download the latest version of the VM and corresponding hands-on-labs / demo scripts at http://aka.ms/vs13almvm. You can find a list of our other ALM VM’s at http://aka.ms/ALMVMs. As always, we love hearing your feedback.

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Virtual Machine

  • Upgraded to Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Applied all recent Windows Updates
  • Increased the size of the VHD file to account for the updates
  • Added TFS 2013 Power Tools
  • Other smaller fit-and-finish fixes and updates based on user feedback

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Want to play with the latest production release (for now) of VS 2013 and TFS, with a ton of great HOL's, with everything all setup for you to learn and explore, data and all? You know the drill, head over to http://aka.ms/ALMVMs and get your download on...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
24! [Hands-on-Labs and Demo Scripts now available in the big BK Visual Studio 2013 ALM VM] + [Bonus: Azure'ing it too...]
Happy VM Day! The Visual Studio 2013 RTM ALM Virtual Machine is now available
The HOL "Building a Release Pipeline with Team Foundation Server 2012" thing
Featuring Agile Planning and Portfolio Management with TFS2013 in these Hands On Labs
Visual Studio 2013 ALM and HOL VM now available...
VS2012 Update 1 ALM VM and HOL / Demo Scripts now available
The VS 2012 ALM Virtual Machine and VS 2012 Update 1 (In short, there's an updated VM coming, don't install it on this VM if you don't have too)
The big BK has updated the Visual Studio 2012 RC ALM Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs
VS 11 ALM DemoMates updated for the Beta
Visual Studio/TFS11 ALM Demo's... Mate! See the VS/TFS 11 ALM's hands-on-labs in DemoMate form
Visual Studio 11 ALM VHD's, VirtualBoxed (and even on x86 hosts too)
Want to play with Visual Studio 11 & TFS 11 Dev Preview but don't want to install it (and have access to a Hyper-V server)? Here's a VHD just for

VS 2013 Update 4 CTP2, TFS 2013.4 CTP2, Team Explorer Everywhere 2013 Update 2 and VSTU 1.9.1

The Visual Studio Blog - Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 CTP 2 (And More) Available

We have four releases today. First, Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 CTP 2 is available, including a few features (e.g. performance improvements for the Visual C++ browsing experience) and some bug fixes. Second, there’s also a CTP available for Team Foundation Server. The release notes have the complete list of features and fixes for both these releases.

Third, we also released Team Explorer Everywhere 2013 Update 2, which, among other things, improves how TEE stores credentials (making sign on to Visual Studio Online much easier) and adds the capability to browse Git repositories within TEE. Will Smythe has a full post here.

Finally, we released the Visual Studio Tools for Unity (VSTU) 1.9.1 on the Visual Studio Gallery: VSTU for VS 2013, VSTU for VS 2012, and VSTU for VS 2010. This release fixed many of the issues you reported on Connect in version 1.9.

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I wonder if we'll see more CTP's this week? Seems like a while since we got a VS "14" CTP... :P

Humans 0 - Robots 0. It appears MSR Robotics Research Team is no more... :(

Microsoft Research - Robotics Research

Results and resources from our robotics initiatives

The robots are coming! Actually, they are already here...

Yeah, maybe not so much.

Saw the first news about this yesterday;

The Humans Are Dead

Sadly, Microsoft has decided to kill the MSR Robotics team... My last day is today.
All that remains is a bunch of robots...

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Here's a bit more information/tweets/etc

microsoft-news - Microsoft Kills The Microsoft Research Robotics Team

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Microsoft Robotics products and services enable academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 is a popular product from that group which is a .NET-based programming environment for building robotics applications. It can be used by both professional and non-professional developers as well as hobbyists.

As part of the recent layoffs, Microsoft has decided to kill the Microsoft Research Robotics studios. Team member Ashley Feniello tweeted about this recently. MSR Robotics team were focused on the following,

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RDS is still available, Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4, but it's 2 1/2 years old now and only for VS 2010.

I always thought this an awesome product/area/team/thing and a bunch of fun to play with. Now with the IoT and Maker stuff, you'd think more would be invested this, not less, let alone killed. :(