A Brief Introduction
In the CURRENT lab, we are exploring techniques and mechanisms to improve security and reliability of large-scale networked systems. Our projects cover a wide range of topics, everything from large distributed systems and social networks to vehicular networks and issues in network security and privacy. Other relevant topics of interest include peer-to-peer networks, reliable routing, reputation systems and attack detection and defense. Much of our recent work has focused on online social networks, applications and systems, and you can find related publications and datasets on our social networks page. Some of our older projects are here.
Meetings and Projects
The CURRENT lab meets weekly to discuss research projects and to present talks. We are always looking for hard-working and highly motivated students to join our group. For more information, please look at the contact page. Students interested in joining UCSB's PhD program, please read my FAQ on prospective students before contacting me. For undergraduate students from India who are interested in summer internships, please know that I currently do not have enough time to manage summer interns in the lab.
Current Projects
- Online Social Networks: detecting spam / fake accounts, measurements and analysis
- Measurement-calibrated Graph Models: produce synthetic graphs matching real data, with differential privacy guarantees
- Orion/Rigel: Graph Coordinate Systems for fast computation of shortest paths on massive graphs
- Katana/Tonto: Efficient Graph Processing
- AirLab: Distributed Infrastructure for Wireless Measurements
- Starfish: Collaborative Vehicular Networking
- Papyrus/Jello: Reconfigurable Frequency-agile Radio Testbeds
Media Coverage
- Crowdturfing: Boston Globe, Sydney Morning Herald, MIT Tech Review, Slashdot, InfoBoom.com
- 3D wireless: New York Times, MIT Tech Review, ExtremeTech, PhysOrg.com, GigaOM
- Social spam: MIT Technology Review
- Social networks & Middle East: IEEE Podcast Interview
- Social networks: New Scientist, IEEE Spectrum, KCSB Radio
- Cloud computing: UC Convergence, UCSB Daily Nexus,
- MIT Young Innovator Award (TR-35): UCSB News
Recent Papers
- Mirror Mirror on the Ceiling: Flexible Wireless Links for Data Centers, SIGCOMM 2012
- Shortest Paths in Less Than a Millisecond, WOSN 2012
- Measurement-based Design of Roadside Content Delivery Systems, IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing 2012
- Enforcing Dynamic Spectrum Access with Spectrum Permits, MobiHoc 2012
- The Effectiveness of Opportunistic Spectrum Access: A Measurement Study, ACM/IEEE Trans. on Networking 2012
- Serf and Turf: Crowdturfing for Fun and Profit, WWW 2012
- Beyond Social Graphs: User Interactions in Online Social Networks and their Implications, ACM Trans. on the Web 2012
- Scaling Microblogging Services with Divergent Traffic Demands, Middleware 2011
- Sharing Graphs using Differentially Private Graph Models, IMC 2011
- Uncovering Social Network Sybils in the Wild, IMC 2011
- Silverline: Toward Data Confidentiality in Storage-Intensive Cloud Applications, SoCC 2011
- I Am the Antenna: Accurate Outdoor AP Location using Smartphones, MOBICOM 2011
- Invisible Interactions: What Latent Social Interaction Can Tell Us about Social Relationships in Social Networking Sites, Book Chapter
- Privacy, Availability and Economics in the Polaris Mobile Social Network, HotMobile 2011
- AirLab: Consistency, Fidelity and Privacy in Wireless Measurements, ACM CCR, 2011
- Papyrus: A Software Platform for Distributed Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Using SDRs, ACM CCR, 2011
- Exploiting Locality of Interest in Online Social Networks, CoNEXT, 2010
- Understanding Latent Interactions in Online Social Networks, IMC 2010
- Detecting and Characterizing Social Spam Campaigns, IMC 2010
- On the Feasibility of Effective Opportunistic Spectrum Access, IMC 2010
- The Spaces Between Us: Setting and Maintaining Boundaries in Wireless Spectrum Access, MOBICOM 2010