Security and Privacy Research Lab

Congratulations to Peter Ney! Peter successfully defended his quals project today. Next stop: Generals. Congratulations Peter! Great job!

Sometimes it can be hard to know what your advisors are thinking. Apparently Yoshi was talking about how to avoid shooting yourself in the foot with a bucket of Legos during a research meeting with Kiron and fellow advisor Franzi. Maybe it made sense at the time? The quote was captured for posterity on Franzi’s white board.

Congratulations to Anna Kornfeld Simpson, who won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

Congratulations to Will Scott, who won an Open Technology Fund Information Controls Fellowship!

Learn about the Information Controls Fellowship here.

Lab member Kiron Lebeck and his group won this week’s department TGIF competition, building the strongest gumdrop-and-toothpick bridge. These photos document the final collapse of the bridge.

UW CSE Security Lab co-director Franzi Roesner spoke about the “security mindset” and about the privacy concerns associated with third-party web tracking at the Pacific Science Center’s March Teen Science Cafe. Thanks to all of the attendees for their smart and insightful questions!

Last night was the UW CSE TGIF Chess Competition. Lab member Anna Kornfeld Simpson tied for the grand prize, out of 16 total competitors. It was quite an amazing, intense competition. Lab member Kiron Lebeck also swiftly annihilated one of his advisors, Yoshi Kohno, as can be seen on the right. Yoshi’s in check mate, but neither side lost any pieces in the battle. Immediately after his victory, lab member Tope Oluwafemi called Kiron to discuss research, as can also be seen in the photo.

UW CSE Security Lab co-director Yoshi Kohno has been awarded the Short-Dooley endowed professorship. See the full announcement here. Congratulations Yoshi!

Congratulations Temitope Oluwafemi! Tope passed his PhD General Exam today. Next step: His PhD Final Defense. Congrats Tope!

Get a sneak peek at this Sunday’s 60 Minutes episode in which UW CSE researchers remotely compromise a car driven by Leslie Stahl, part of a segment examining cybersecurity threats and the Internet of Things. (See a photo of the set-up at right.)

During the segment featured in the CBS preview, the head of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Dan Kaufman, DARPA Program Manager Kathleen Fisher, and UW Ph.D. alum Karl Koscher demonstrate how hackers can control various functions of a motor vehicle. The demo is based on research conducted by a team from UW CSE (Alexei Czeskis, Yoshi Kohno, Karl Koscher and Franzi Roesner) and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego.

Get a sneak peek at the 60 Minutes episode in the CBS preview here – the preview is all UW CSE, all the time!

Read more about the automotive security collaboration between UW CSE and UCSD here.

Tune into your local CBS affiliate Sunday, February 8th at 7:00 pm to catch the full segment!