Security and Privacy Research Lab

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Ney for successfully defending his PhD Dissertation today. Peter is a research leader at the intersection of biology and computer security, as well also in the study of privacy and cell-site simulators. See, for example, his USENIX Security paper entitled “Computer Security, Privacy, and DNA Sequencing: Compromising Computers with Synthesized DNA, Privacy Leaks, and More“, as well as his PETS paper entitled “SeaGlass: A City-wide Cell-site Simulator Detection Network”. Peter will be staying at UW as a postdoc, working with both the UW Security and Privacy Research Lab and the Molecular Information Systems Lab (MISL).

The Security Lab has a new home! At the end of January, we moved across the street into the new Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering. We’re excited for the new space — especially the exterior windows with a partial view of Lake Washington — and room for growth! We’d like to extend a huge thank you to all of the donors who made this incredible building a reality, particularly Jim & Catherine Allchin, for whom our new lab space is named.

This week several members of the Security Lab attended the 25th HotMobile workshop in Santa Cruz, CA. Kiron Lebeck, graduating PhD student, presented his work on “Enabling Multiple Applications to Simultaneously Augment Reality: Challenges and Directions”. Shrirang Mare, former Security Lab postdoc (now a postdoc at Indiana University), presented his work on “Consumer Smart Homes: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go”. Congrats to Kiron and Shri on great talks and discussion (with a great view of the ocean in the background)!

Congratulations to second-year Security Lab PhD students Christine Chen and Christine Geeng for both successfully completing their Quals Talks this quarter! The Quals project and talk, along with all the relevant coursework, fulfill a major milestone along the path to a PhD.

Members of the Security and Privacy Lab once again presented some of their latest research at this year’s Allen School Industry Affiliates Research Day. Presentations included:

• Kiron Lebeck on “Towards Security and Privacy for Multi-User Augmented Reality: Foundations with End Users”
• Lucy Simko on “Computer Security and Privacy for Refugees in the United States”
• Christine Geeng on “Who’s In Control?: Interactions In Multi-User Smart Homes”

In addition, Security Lab co-director Franzi Roesner gave the day’s lunch keynote talk on “Computer Security and Privacy for Existing and Emerging Technologies”.

Members of the Security Lab took advantage of the beautiful Seattle late-summer weather today to go on a great hike at Wallace Falls.

Congratulations to Kiron Lebeck and Lucy Simko for their excellent talks at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland) this week!

Kiron presented his work “Towards Security and Privacy for Multi User Augmented Reality: Foundations with End Users”, in collaboration with Security Lab undergraduate Kimberly Ruth and faculty members Yoshi Kohno and Franzi Roesner. You can watch the video of Kiron’s talk here and read the paper here.

Lucy presented her work on “Computer Security and Privacy for Refugees in the United States”, in collaboration with Security Lab alumna Ada Lerner, Samia Ibtasam, and Security Lab faculty members Franzi Roesner and Yoshi Kohno. You can watch the video of Lucy’s talk here and read the paper here.

Congratulations once again to Security and Privacy Lab undergraduate Kimberly Ruth! This month she was named both a 2018 Goldwater Scholar — a huge honor! — as well as one of the 2018 UW Husky 100. Read more about both of these awards over at Allen School News: Goldwater Scholarship, Husky 100. Congratulations Kimberly!!

Congratulations to both Camille Cobb and Kiron Lebeck for successfully passing their General Exams this week, officially making them PhD Candidates!

 

The lab celebrated by going out for ice cream at Molly Moon’s.

Kimberly Ruth was named as a Finalist for the 2018 CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award! This is a very competitive award that “recognizes undergraduate students in North American universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research.” Kimberly’s current research focus is on security and privacy for emerging augmented reality (AR) technologies, and she’s been a member of the Security and Privacy Lab since she was a freshman. Kimberly has had an incredible year, adding this award to the Mary Gates Research Scholarship, the SWSIS Scholarship, and the WRF Fellowship. Congratulations Kimberly on this huge honor!