Jefferson's Wheel

I was one of 54 signatories on a letter organized by Alvaro Bedoya (from Georgetown University Law Center) from technology experts to DHS (Acting) Secretary Elaine Duke in opposition to the proposed plans to use algorithms to identify undesirable individuals as part of the Extreme Vetting Initiative: [PDF]. The Brennan Center’s Web page provides a lot of resources supporting the letter.

Some media coverage:

• Using artificial intelligence for 'extreme vetting'? Not on our watch, 50 scientists say  (Matt O'Brien (AP), International Business Times, November 17, 2017).
• Federal 'Extreme Vetting' Plan Castigated by Tech Experts (Matt O'Brien (AP), The New York Times, November 16, 2017).
• Tech experts blast Trump's extreme vetting plan (Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, November 16, 2017).
• Critics call for Trump to abandon plan for "Extreme Vetting" software (Ina Fried, Axios, November 16, 2017).

• More than 50 experts just told DHS that using AI for "extreme vetting" is dangerously misguided (Dave Gershgorn, Quartz, November 16, 2017).

• AI Experts Say ICE's Predictive 'Extreme Vetting' Plan Is 'Tailor-Made for Discrimination' (Sidney Fussell, Gizmodo, November 16, 2017).

The 24^th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security was held in Dallas, 30 October – 3 November. Being Program Committee co-chair for a conference like this is a full-year commitment, and the work continues throughout much of the year preceding the conference. The conference has over 1000 registered attendees, a record for any academic security research conference.

Here are a few highlights from the conference week.

PC Chairs’ Welcome (opening session)

Giving the PC Chairs’ Welcome Talk

Audience at Opening Session

ACM CCS 2017 Paper Awards Finalists

CCS 2017 Awards Banquet

At the Award’s Banquet, I got to award a Best Paper award to SRG alum Jack Doerner (I was, of course, recused by conflict from being involved in any decisions on his paper).

UVA Lunch (around the table starting at front left): Suman Jana (honorary Wahoo by marriage), Darion Cassel (SRG BSCS 2017, now at CMU), Will Hawkins, Jason Hiser, Samee Zahur (SRG PhD 2016, now at Google), Jack Doerner (SRG BACS 2016, now at Northeastern), Joe Calandrino (now at FTC); Back right to front: Ben Kreuter (now at Google), Anh Nguyen-Tuong, Jack Davidson, Yuan Tian, Yuchen Zhou (SRG PhD 2015, now at Palo Alto Networks), David Evans.

I gave a talk at the First ACM Workshop for Women in Cybersecurity (affiliated with ACM CCS 2017) on Truth, Social Justice (and the American Way?):

There’s also a short paper, loosely related to the talk: [PDF]