This lab conducts research in the areas of network services and resource management and associated security vulnerabilities.

LAB DIRECTOR

ACTIVE PROJECTS

Spectrum Management for Successful Mission Completion in Tactical Networks (Supported by US Airforce Research Lab)

Mission completion in tactical networks depends on assigning spectrum for different missions so that packets reach the destination without being lost and are error-free. This project develops distributed algorithms for spectrum allocation that exploits correlation in the information transmitted by different sources (e.g., multiple CCTV cameras may transmit the same video content). The proposed algorithms result in almost 100 percent mission success (0 percent mission failure).

Geolocation of IP Hosts in Large, Congested Computer Networks (Funded by NSF REU)

Geolocation has found increasing importance to detect malicious activity in the Internet (like suppression of speech, vandalism, cyber-crimes, and localizing and blocking content while managing websites. IP address- based geolocation was found to be erroneous, laden with numerous vulnerabilities. Measurement-based geolocation without accounting for network traffic congestion is equivalent to predicting the estimated arrival time in a GPS navigator without accounting for road traffic congestion. This research proposes geolocation algorithms that yield up to 97 percent accuracy when tested on various nodes in the Internet distributed across the world.

Role of User Interaction in Information Spread in Social Media

More than 67 percent of Americans obtain news from social media. Since many people share information without verifying facts, this leads to wrong public opinions and confusion, with those in the age group of 18 to 34 being most susceptible. This research project develops a tool to collect social media data (from Twitter) to study spread of information on various cur- rent topics. Stochastic control theoretic "short- term" and "long-term" models are developed to study the spread of rumors. Results show that rumors mainly spread due to "interactions be- tween users" on a topic and not just the number of users actively spreading the news, particularly for subjective topics, like sports (e.g., FIFA world cup) and policies (e.g., immigration).