The Secure, Private Internet (SPIN) Research Group
We aim to make Internet communications truly secure and private. To this end, we study the security and privacy guarantees of existing network protocols, tools, and services, and propose ways to strengthen them—either through design improvements or by building clean-slate communication systems.
Our research blends the development of practical systems with rigorous theoretical analysis, drawing on methods from computer networking, cryptography, and statistics. Over the years, we have explored a wide range of topics, including Internet censorship resistance, traffic analysis and defenses, trustworthy AI, and multimedia information hiding.
Faculty
PhD Students
PhD Alumni
- Masters Alumni: Paras Doshi (2015), Rufina Chettiar (2015), Shreyas Mishra (2019), Hadi Zolfaghari (2018, Google), Amirhossein Ghafari (2021, NVIDIA)
- Undergraduate Theses: Kevin Feveck (Honors Thesis, 2015), John Holowczak (2014-2015), Derek Costigan (Honors Thesis, 2016), Joseph Lew (Honors Thesis, 2017), John Geenty (Honors Thesis, 2018), Yudong Diao (Honors Thesis, 2019), Matthew Hickey (Honors Thesis, 2019), Milo Cason-Snow (Honors Thesis, 2020), Jonah O'Brien Weiss (Honors Thesis, 2021)
- Visitors: Sajjad Amini (2023-2024), Pedro Henrique (2024-2025)
Active Research Topics
We always strive to explore emerging, impactful research problems in the area of security and privacy. The following are our active research topics:
- Privacy-enhancing technologies
- Trustworthy AI
- Network traffic analysis
- Privacy in next-generation networks
- Covert communications
- IoT and location privacy
Software/Code
- Our open-source projects are available on SPIN's GitHub repository
- Select network traces hosted on UMass Trace Repository
- The CensorLab Emulator Project
- The MassBrowser Circumvention System
- For other projects please inquire through email!
Selected Media Coverage
- The Guardian covers our discovery of regional blocking!
- The Register covering our WallBleed work!
- Interview with MassLive on Internet freedom!
- The Fabulous 413 Podcast on Civil digital discourse!
- Coverage of our DARPA Director's Award!
- Interviewed by WBZ NewsRadio 1030 on online safety.
- Interviewed by MassLive on Russian WiFi malware.
- Houmansadr Lab Wins Trifecta of Awards for Groundbreaking Work on the Great Firewall of China.
- TechCrunch covering GFW Report's findings about recent TLS censorship.
- Interview with The Wire China on the recent censorship arms-race
- Coverage of our study of ESNI blocking
- TV interview on Net Neutrality
- Open Tech Fund blog on MassBrowser
- Coverage of Graphene
- Bitcoin Unlimited Merges Graphene Block Propagation Technology
- Coverage of NSF CAREER Award
- Interview with EL ESPANOL (Spanish)
- Interview with MassLive
- MIT Technology Review writes about CacheBrowser
- China Topix article on CacheBrowser
- Interview with the New Scientist
- Departmental coverage of our research at UIUC
- Interview with the CSL Communications
- Older media coverage: [msnbc] [Times of India] [Security News Daily] [Think Digit] [Criminal Wisdom] [LaptopMag] [SiliconIndia] [CSL] [NetworkSolutionTips]