Research Interests

My current research interests are in Computer Security, Operating Systems and Networks. Current projects include

  • Ethos, an operating systems designed for security.
  • SayI An authentication infrastructure based on public key cryptography
  • authorization: what a system allows to happen (theory, operating systems, and high-level specifications);
  • distributed authentication: who is using the system (PKI and operating systems/distributed systems);
  • secure networks

Teaching

  • Fall'09: CS 587: Computer Systems Security.
  • Spring'10:
    • CS 588 Distributed and Network Security.
    • CS 491: Secure Operating System Design and Implementation

Blogging

I started blogging (Insecurity Blog). I just couldn't help myself.

Recent program committees

  • Program Committee, ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS), 2007.
  • Program Committee Co-Chair and Organizer (2007) and Program Committee Member and Organizer (2008) 1st Computer Security Architecture Workshop (CSAW), co-located at ACM/CCS
  • Program Committee, International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES), 2008, 2009
  • Program Committee, New Security Paradigms Workshop (NSPW), 2008.
  • Program Committee, 8th Symposium on Identity and Trust on the Internet (IDtrust 2009, 2010).
  • Program Committee, ACM Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2009).

Center for Research and Instruction in Technologies for Electronic Security (RITES)

In December, 2005 the Center for Research and Instruction in Technologies for Electronic Security (RITES) was established at UIC to coordinate research and education in the areas of computer security and privacy. In 2007, RITES was designated by NSA/DHS as a National Ceneter for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.

Education

Ph.D. Computer Science,New York University, 1987


M.S. Computer Science, New York University, 1981
B.A. Computer Science, New York University, 1978

Consulting

I am available for consulting in the areas of computer security.

The Oakland Papers

In 2004, Bob Sloan and I had a paper a IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (called in the community the Oakland Conference) on the decidability of a model which could represent each of the Discretionary Access Control (DAC) systems in the Osborn-Sandhu-Munawer DAC taxonomy. Our model was the first which was known to be sufficiently expressive to represent these DAC systems and which could be analyzed with respect to the safety problem.

In 2005, Prof. Li and Mahesh V. Tripunitara published a paper in Security and Privacy which among other things claimed that our model was incorrect (and furthermore, mischaracterized our model with respect to decidability). Here is a link to our statement on their paper.