I work as a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Empirical Security Research Group in the CS Department at Stanford University. My research is at the intersection of security and networking. One of the main threads in my research is understanding the security implications of various Internet protocols and mechanisms. Previously, I worked on a range of things right from mobile computing, kernels, to next generation storage systems. At Stanford, I work with Zakir Durumeric. At UC San Diego, I had three(!) great advisors: Geoffrey Voelker, Stefan Savage, and KC Claffy. |
News!
- 2023-07-05 -- Our paper won the Distinguished Paper Award at Euro S&P 2023! Congrats Alex!
- 2023-02-24 -- I will be in Manila, Philippines attending APRICOT 2023 on February 27th and 28th. Come say hi!
- 2023-02-13 -- I will be in Atlanta attending NANOG 87 between February 12th to February 15th. Come say hi!
- 2022-10-25 -- IMC News -- ZDNS won the ACM IMC 2022 Community Contribution Award. I also won the M-Lab IMC Hackathon!
- 2022-10-21 -- I will be in Europe attending ACM IMC, IETF 115, and ICANN DNS Symposium in October and November. Come say hi!
- 2022-08-17 -- Five papers accepted at IMC 2022!
- 2022-05-31 -- I successfully defended my thesis! Identifying DNS Infrastructure Hijacks using Large Scale Measurements
- 2022-01-11 -- I was awarded the IETF/IRTF ANRP Award for the Risky BIZness paper!
Academic
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Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science at Stanford University 2022-2024
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PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego 2017-2022
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MS in Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego 2013-2015
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BTech in Information Technology at College of Engineering, Pune 2008-2012
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Experience
Teaching Experience
Awarded the Graduate Award for Teaching in 2015.
Teaching Assistant
CSE 221 - Operating Systems - Winter 2015
CSE 123 - Computer Networks - Fall 2014
CSE 100 - Advanced Data Structures - Spring 2014
CSE 141 - Introduction to Computer Architecture - Winter 2014
Professional Experience
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Member of Technical Staff Core Engineering August 2015 to May 2017
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Engineering Intern Automation and Tools Team June 2014 to September 2014
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Engineer Linux Performance Team June 2012 to August 2013
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Publications
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[Accepted]
IRRegularities in the Internet Routing Registry
ACM IMC '23, Montreal, Canada, October 2023.
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In the Line of Fire: Risks of DPI-triggered Data Collection
Cyber Security Experimentation and Test (CSET), August 2023.
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Forward Pass: On the Security Implications of Email Forwarding Mechanism and Policy
*Distinguished Paper Award*
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy, Delft, Netherlands, July 2023.
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Retroactive Identification of Targeted DNS Infrastructure Hijacking
ACM IMC '22, Nice, France, October 2022.
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ZDNS: A Fast DNS Toolkit for Internet Measurement
*IMC 2022 Community Contribution Award*
ACM IMC '22, Nice, France, October 2022.
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Where .ru? Assessing the Impact of Conflict on Russian Domain Infrastructure
ACM IMC '22, Nice, France, October 2022.
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Stop, DROP, and ROA: Effectiveness of Defenses through the lens of DROP
ACM IMC '22, Nice, France, October 2022.
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Mind Your MANRS: Measuring the MANRS Ecosystem
ACM IMC '22, Nice, France, October 2022.
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Domain Name Lifetimes: Baseline and Threats
TMA '22, Enschede, June 2022.
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IRR Hygiene In the RPKI Era
PAM '22, Virtual Event, March 2022.
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Risky BIZness: Risks Derived from Registrar Name Management
*IETF/IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) 2022*
ACM IMC '21, Virtual Event, November 2021.
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Home is Where the Hijacking is: Understanding DNS Interception by Residential Routers
ACM IMC '21, Virtual Event, November 2021.
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Who’s Got Your Mail? Characterizing Mail Service Provider Usage
ACM IMC '21, Virtual Event, November 2021.
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Characterization of Anycast Adoption in the DNS Authoritative Infrastructure
*Best Paper Award*
TMA '21, Virtual Event, September 2021.
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Clairvoyance: Inferring Blocklist Use on the Internet
PAM '21, Virtual Event, March 2021.
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Unresolved Issues: Prevalence, Persistence and Perils of Lame Delegations
ACM IMC '20, Virtual Event, October 2020.
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Trufflehunter: Cache Sniffing Rare Domains at Large Public DNS Resolvers
*IETF/IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) 2021*
ACM IMC '20, Virtual Event, October 2020.
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MAnycast2 -- Using Anycast to Measure Anycast: Challenges and Opportunities
ACM IMC '20, Virtual Event, October 2020.
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Measuring Security Practices and How They Impact Security
ACM IMC '19, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019.
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Inferring Persistent Interdomain Congestion
*Best Paper Award*
ACM SIGCOMM '18, Budapest, Hungary, August 2018.
Posters
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DNS Baseline Dynamics
IMC '19, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019.
Talks
ICANN SSAC Talk, 2020DINR Workshop, 2020
AIMS-KISMET Workshop, 2020
Thesis
- MS Thesis:
A New Look at DMCA Section 512 Process
Projects
A New Look at DMCA Section 512 Process
This work focussed on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the potential "chilling effects" that might arise from the DMCA Section 512 process which allows copyright holders to take down content which they believe infringes their copyright. The goal driven was to enable a data-driven analysis of this extra-judicial takedown provision thereby enable recommendations that are primarily based in solid data. As a first step towards this goal, we establish a framework to begin understanding the takedown process and its effect on the Internet. [Report]SWAYAM CUBESAT Mission, COEP
Worked on a CUBESAT standard satellite "Swayam", that was launched by ISRO in June 2016. I worked on the design and implementation of the Onboard Computer and was part of the Systems Engineering group as well. [Link]Other Projects
Next Generation Sequencing Performance Investigation
Machine Translation for Standardization of Localization
Monitoring Framework for BTRFS
Community
Chez Bob
I helped manage Chez Bob. For more information visit: chezbob.ucsd.eduPS: Do NOT owe money to Chez Bob. Bobfather will find you! :)
ARCHAC
I served as the Co-Chair for ARCHAC (Associated Residential Community Housing Advisory Committee) University Committee. If you have questions, concerns, suggestions for Graduate Student Housing at UCSD please email archac@gsa.ucsd.edu Also, feel free to reach out to me if there is something I can help answer.Misc
Google Summer of Code, 2012Contact
Email: gakiwate -- at -- cs.stanford.edu