WordCloud representation of paper abstracts.

Research Interests

  • Online privacy
  • Network traffic analysis
  • Privacy in IoT
  • Privacy in Voice and VR interfaces
  • Privacy-enhancing technologies
  • Inference attacks
  • Usable security and privacy
  • Machine Learning+Privacy
  • Anonymity networks

Today, with the rapid adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), we face a new world where we are never alone. At all times, a plethora of connected devices, from smartphones to home assistants to motion detectors, sense and monitor our activities. While these devices provide us convenience, they are often backed by powerful analytics to sift through a large volume of personal data, at times collected without our awareness or consent. In my research, I look at developing novel frameworks that can discover, inform and control information flow. We are also looking at developing privacy-preserving techniques for different emerging IoT ecosystems.

Please visit our IoTLab page for more details on projects we are currently working on.

Relevant publications:

When we interact with the Web, we leave behind traces of our interactions, called digital footprints. These footprints reveal a lot about ourselves; our identity, habits, and desires. Such intensely personal information has great commercial value to advertisers in the form of serving targeted ads, but at the same time, it can also be misused by employers and repressive governments. To protect users, privacy tools such as ad- and tracker-blocking extensions have been developed. In turn, advertisers have begun leveraging more advanced tracking techniques that reduce the effectiveness of these approaches. In my research, I look at emerging techniques to track users and devices online, as well as ways to develop usable countermeasures.

Relevant publications:

Today’s Internet services rely heavily on text-based passwords for user authentication. The pervasiveness of these services, coupled with the difficulty of remembering large numbers of secure passwords, tempts users to reuse or modify existing passwords at multiple sites. My research looks at analyzing and identifying different ways in which users reuse or modify passwords using real-world, large-scale leaked data sets.

Relevant publications:

Many people use anonymity networks like Tor to hide their digital footprints on the Internet. My research looks at analyzing the security and privacy guarantees provided by Tor in the presence of active and passive attackers.

Relevant publications: