Sadia Afroz
Sadia, Dec 2019 I am a Senior Researcher at ICSI and Avast Software.

I am interested in security, privacy and machine learning. My PhD was about investigating the anonymity of writing style: thesis (runner up for the ACM SIGSAC Dissertation Award 2014).


My CV.
Email: firstname@icsi.berkeley.edu
Please do not ask me to deanonymize Satoshi. Why?
Because:
  • My goal for working on stylometry is to make people aware of its harm, investigate the brittleness of machine learning and make tools to IMPROVE anonymity. I have no interest in deanonymizing someone who wants to protect his/her identity.
  • I don’t think that the scientific community has anything to gain by deanonymizing Satoshi.

Recent Events

Publications

(For citation, see Google Scholar.)

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011 and before

Talks

(Video) HotPETs talk videos
(Video) Backpage & Bitcoin, Uncovering Human Traffickers
(Video) My talk on Internet Freedom at GCRI, NY
(Video) SoK: Towards Grounding Censorship Circumvention in Empiricism, IEEE S&P, 2016
(Video) Censorship Arms Race: Research vs. Practice, HotPETS, 2015
(Audio) Interview: Finding the Needle in the Haystack: Identification through Writing Style, Social Engineering Podcast, 2015
(Video) Stylometry and Online Underground Markets (with Aylin Caliskan-Islam). 29th Chaos Communication Congress (2012). slides.
(Video) Deceiving Authorship Detection (with Michael Brennan). 28th Chaos Communication Congress (2011). slides.
Other talks
Qualcomm Research Sillicon Valley, 2016
Twitter, 2016
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 2016
Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS), Princeton University, 2016
ISAT/DARPA Workshop: Technological Disruptions of Societies and Organizations: Communications Networks, Computational Trust, Reputation, Anonymity, and Beyond, 2016
Challenges of Anonymous Communications, Indiana University, 2015
Automatic Malware Detection, Intel research demo, 2015
Using Machine Learning in Security, Intel Research, 2015
Improving User Anonymity at the Content and Network Level, IBM TJ Watson, 2015
Panelist at Berkeley-Stanford Meetup for women in CS and EE, 2015
Anonymity in the Big Data Era, Yale University, 2015
Anonymity in the Big Data Era, University of Houston, 2015
Anonymity in the Big Data Era, University of Arizona, 2015
Anonymity in the Big Data Era, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2015
Stylometry and Privacy, NSF-funded workshop on Human subjects' protections in the digital age, 2014
Doppelgänger Finder: Taking Stylometry To The Underground, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, 2014
Doppelgänger Finder: Taking Stylometry To The Underground, NSF review for Center for Evidence-based Security Research (CESR), UC San Diego 2014
Doppelgänger Finder: Taking Stylometry To The Underground, Google Abuse Summit, Mountain View 2014
Doppelgänger Finder: Taking Stylometry To The Underground, IEEE Security and Privacy, 2014
Stylometry and Anonymity at DataPhilly meetup, Sep 2013.
Using Analytics and Machine Learning for detecting deception. PhD Forum, GHC 2012 (Oct, 2012)
Stylometry and Anonymity, Stanford Security Seminar, Stanford University (June, 2012).
Detecting Deception in Writing Style, SCRUB winter retreat, UC Berkeley (Jan, 2012).

Service

Program Co-Chair:
  • Workshop on Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (HotPETS) 2016, 2017

    • Program Committee: USENIX Security 2018, ConPro 2018 , Euro S&P 2018 , MLSec 2017, ACM CCS 2017, eCrime 2017, eCrime 2016, IEEE S&P 2016, WWW 2017, WWW 2016, USENIX Security 2015, PETS 2017, PETS 2016, PETS 2015, Workshop on Women Empowerment through ICT: Higher Studies, Research and Career, Bangladesh, 2014, Usable Security 2013, Usable Security 2012
    Organizing Committee:
  • IEEE CS Security and Privacy Workshops 2013

    • Student Organization:
  • President of Drexel Women in Computing Society, 2010-2011.

    • Other fun things

    Other than research, I enjoy photography, Hummingbirds and Yoga. Check out our radio drama: The Post Office!
    I'm originally from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
    I have another name, Sheetal (শীতল), which means cool in Bengali (Bengali Naming Convention).