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 UW CSE Systems, Networking, and Security Research
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Faculty
 Tom Anderson
 Magda Balazinska
 Brian Bershad
 Gaetano Borriello
 Steve Gribble
 Yoshi Kohno
 Arvind Krishnamurthy
 Ed Lazowska
 Hank Levy
 David Wetherall
 John Zahorjan
Affiliated Faculty
 Anna Karlin
 Richard Ladner
 Alan Shaw
   

We pursue high-impact, innovative research into fundamental aspects of networks, operating systems, distributed systems, and security. Our current research interests include fault-tolerant networks and systems, robust protocol design, security and protection for Internet systems and services, the measurement of deployed, wide-area systems such as the web and content distribution networks, pervasive computing, high performance scalable cluster-based systems, and virtual machine technology.

Some of our systems/networking/security alumni: Gary Nutt (1972, now at the University of Colorado), Greg Andrews (1974, University of Arizona), Carla Ellis (1979, Duke), Hank Levy (1981, DEC -> UW), Calton Pu (1986, OGI -> Georgia Tech), Norm Hutchinson (1987, Arizona -> UBC), John Bennett (1988, Rice -> Colorado), Eric Jul (1989, DIKU), Kevin Jeffay (1989, UNC), Brian Bershad (1990, CMU -> UW), Jason Yi-Bing Lin (1990, Bellcore -> NCTU), Tom Anderson (1991, Berkeley -> UW), Cliff Neuman (1992, USC ISI), Ed Felten (1993, Princeton), Chandu Thekkath (1994, DEC SRC -> Microsoft Research), Michael Rabinovich (1994, AT&T Research -> Case), Jeff Chase (1995, Duke), Shun-Tak Leung (1996, DEC SRC -> Google), Dean Tullsen (1996, UCSD), Mike Feeley (1996, UBC), Thu Nguyen (1999, Rutgers), Geoff Voelker (2000, UCSD), Brian Pinkerton (2000, Webcrawler -> AOL -> Excite -> independent consultant), Stefan Savage (2002, UCSD), Emin Gun Sirer (2002, Cornell), Alec Wolman (2002, Microsoft Research), Robert Grimm (2002, NYU), Neil Spring (2004, Maryland), Stefan Saroiu (2004, Toronto), Krishna Gummadi (2005, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems), Mike Swift (2005, Wisconsin), Ratul Mahajan (2005, Microsoft Research), Tapan Parikh (2007, Berkeley).

Award Papers at top conferences (SOSP, OSDI, SIGCOMM, NSDI, etc.): 2008 (Consensus Routing), 2007 (BitTyrant), 2006 (Tahoma), 2005 (device fingerprinting), 2004 (Nooks), 2003 (Scriptroute), 2003 (Nooks), 2002 (p2p file sharing characterization), 2002 (King), 2002 (Rocketfuel), 2002 (analysis of content delivery systems), 2001 (streaming media workloads), 1999 (Porcupine), 1997 (Eraser), 1995 (xFS), 1993 (Nachos), 1993 (user-level communication protocols), 1992 (AN2), 1991 (Scheduler Activations), 1989 (thread management), 1989 (Lightweight Remote Procedure Call (LRPC)), 1987 (Emerald), 1985 (adaptive load sharing), 1985 (VAXclusters), 1979 (Ethernet analysis).

Other recognition: 2007 ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award (David Wetherall), 2005 ACM SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award (Tom Anderson), 2004 ACM SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award (Brian Bershad), 2004 ACM Student Research Competition first place (Mike Swift), 2005 IEEE William Bennett Prize (Neil Spring, Ratul Mahajan, David Wetherall, and Tom Anderson), Sloan Research Fellowships (Tom Anderson, Steve Gribble, Yoshi Kohno, David Wetherall), ACM Fellow (Tom Anderson, Ed Lazowska, Hank Levy), IEEE Fellow (Ed Lazowska, Hank Levy), National Academy of Engineering (Ed Lazowska).

Current Projects

Distributed systems and networks

Improving Browsers and Web Architecture: We are investigating new browser architectures and Web mechanisms to improve the security and reliability of Web applications.

Planetlab/GENI We are founding members in Planetlab and its successor GENI, with the goal of creating a flexible platform for wide area distributed systems and network research.

Internet Astronomy: Our goal is to systematically measure every aspect of the Internet's behavior to serve as a reliable information plane for the next generation of network protocols.

RIP (Rearchitecting the Internet Protocols): Our research is to rethink the Internet's design from first principles. Rather than patching existing systems with partial solutions, we are interested in solutions that achieve fundamental limits of security, robustness, performance and evolvability, given a clean slate design.

Wireless Network Design: We are measuring how well WiFi works today to inform our design of better protocols for denser and more demanding environments in the future. 

TVA (Traffic Validation Architecture): A network architecture based on capabilities to defeat Internet denial-of-service attacks.

Internet Systems Measurement and Analysis: We perform measurement studies to explore web document sharing and cacheability, the limits of cooperative caching systems, CDN performance, and characteristics of deployed P2P systems.

Cyber Infrastructure for the Ocean Observatories Initiative: We are collaborating on the design of the cyber infrastructure for the NEPTUNE Regional Coastal Observatory, a deployment of thousands of sensors on the seafloor off the Washington coast.

Security

Spyware and Worms: We tackle pressing system threats such as spyware and worms, with a focus on the architecture and implementation of real systems that defend against them.

Electronic Voting: We are exploring methods for improving the security of electronic voting machines; our goal is to appropriately balance security with other relevant constraints, including cost, accessibility, and usability.

Applied Cryptography: Our research focuses on the design of practical cryptographic protocols with strong, provable security properties. We also research new cryptanalytic techniques for assessing the security of cryptographic constructs that are not amenable to our provable security-based analyses.

Information Leakage: We are exploring new information leakage security problems with real systems, with the principal goal of developing appropriate countermeasures and providing greater assurance for the security of critical systems.

Trustworthy Networks: We are designing wireless and wired networks that protect privacy and operate dependably. As part of our research, we recently analyzed the privacy-preserving properties of the Nike+iPod Sport Kit.

Pervasive and third-world systems

CAM -- Mobile Applications for the Rural Developing World: Our goal is to design holistic, accessible computing systems that support sustainable rural development in low per-capita income economic conditions.

Digital Study Hall: This project seeks to improve primary education in the third world, as a collaboration between technologists, education researchers, and teachers on the ground in rural India.

RFID Ecosystem: The RFID Ecosystem is a large-scale project with participants from various research groups at UW CSE. The project investigates RFID-based pervasive computing in connection with technology, business, and society.

Portolano Expedition in Invisible Computing: This project seeks to create a testbed for investigation into the emerging field of invisible computing, in which devices are so highly optimized to particular tasks that they blend into the world.

Recent Projects

Denali: Techniques for running thousands of lightweight virtual machines as a mechanism for isolating untrusted code
Nooks: A reliability subsystem that greatly enhances OS reliability by isolating the OS from driver failures
ANTS and STP: Active network toolkits for developing network and transport protocols
Rocketfuel: Internet mapping engine and Internet maps
Scriptroute: An open Internet measurement facility running on PlanetLab
one.world: A system architecture for pervasive computing
Detour: Intelligent tunnels for Internet performance and availability
Algorithms for Media-on-Demand Systems: Stream merging and window scheduling

Older Projects

Five generations of object-oriented systems
SPIN Operating System
Opal Single-Address Space Operating System
DDDDrraw - Distributed 3D Real-time Rendering at Washington
IPv6/IPv4 Network Address Protocol Translator
Memory System Performance
GMS: Global resource sharing in workstation/PC clusters
Etch: Instrumentation and optimization of WIN32/Intel executables
SPINE: A Safe Programmable Integrated Network Environment
Short Abstracts of Various Related Projects Security for Extensible Systems


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University of Washington
Box 352350
Seattle, WA  98195-2350
(206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX
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