| Dr. John Maheswaran
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PhD Dissertation
My PhD dissertation is available here: Building Privacy Preserving Cryptographic Credentials from Federated Online IdentitiesMy PhD defense slides are available here: Slides [pdf]
My PhD committee members are: Bryan Ford (adviser, Yale --> EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne)), Joan Feigenbaum (Yale), Ramki Gummadi (Yale --> Amazon), Anil Somayaji (Carleton University, Canada)
Current Work
I am a PhD student in computer science at Yale University. I am currently working in the Decentralized and Distributed Systems Group (DeDIS) with Prof Bryan Ford.I work on usable cyber-security, privacy, online anonymity, social networks and distributed systems. My research focuses on leveraging online social networks and cryptographic techniques to provide anonymity preserving online identity services. I am carrying out research for the Dissent project which is part of the multi-agency Safer Warfighter Communications project.
Background
Previously, I graduated ranked as one of the top students in computer science from the University of Cambridge in England. Whilst at Cambridge I worked with Turing Award Laureate (the Nobel Prize of computer science) and recipient of nine honorary doctorates, the late Prof Robin Milner. I worked with him on bigraphs and ubiquitous computing.Education
Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Computer Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale UniversityMaster of Science (MS) in Computer Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University
Master of Arts (MA) in Computer Science, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts (BA Hons.) in Computer Science, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Biography
John Maheswaran is a a PhD student in computer science at Yale University where he works with Prof Bryan Ford in the decentralized and distributed systems group. He completed his undergraduate studies in computer science at the University of Cambridge (UK) where he worked with Turing Award Laureate the late Prof Robin Milner on models of computation and ubiquitous computing. His current research interests include networking, security, privacy and distributed systems.Publications
Crypto-Book: An Architecture for Privacy Preserving Online Identities [Paper]John Maheswaran, David Isaac Wolinsky, Bryan Ford
Hot Topics in Networks '13 (HotNets-XII) Acceptance rate: 23% (26 out of 110 papers accepted)
Crypto-Book: Privacy Preserving Online Identities [Poster]
John Maheswaran, David Isaac Wolinsky, Bryan Ford
SOSP '13 Poster Session (Symposium on Operating Systems Principles) Acceptance rate: 66% (71 out of 107 posters accepted)
and
Diversity '13 Poster Session (Workshop on Diversity in Systems Research)
Crypto-Book: Privacy Preserving Online Identities [Extended abstract]
John Maheswaran, David Isaac Wolinsky, Bryan Ford
SOSP '13 Works In Progress (WIP) Session (Symposium on Operating Systems Principles) Acceptance rate: 30% (14 out of 46 submissions accepted)
Tech Reports
Crypto-Book: Bootstrapping Privacy Preserving Online Identities from Social Networks
John Maheswaran, Daniel Jackowitz, David Isaac Wolinsky, Lining Wang, Bryan Ford arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.4053, June 2014
Oblivious periodic traversal of anonymous, undirected graphs with advice and adversarial port numbers
John Maheswaran
Yale University Technical Report (YALEU/DCS/TR-1475), April 2013
Article
I wrote a short piece on Crypto-Book that appeared in the following SIGOPS article:
The workshop on diversity in systems research 2013.
Stewart, Christopher, and Vishakha Gupta.
ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review 48.1 (2014): 103-106.
Scholarly Review
I have been an external reviewer for the ACM Computer Communication Review (CCR) journal and a reviewer for CHINACOM.I have also assisted my adviser, Prof Bryan Ford, with reviewing papers for the top tier ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles (SOSP) conference as well as SIGCOMM.
Please Note: I am happy to be an external reviewer for papers on the topics of security, privacy, distributed systems, social networks, networking or related fields. Please feel free to contact me at the via my email address (at the top of this page) if you are looking for external reviewers for your conference/workshop or journal.
Teaching Experience
CPSC112, Introduction to Programming in Java, Prof Yang (Richard) Yang, Spring 2014. View student evaluationsCPSC112, Introduction to Programming in Java, Prof Drew V. McDermott, Fall 2013. View student evaluations
CPSC112, Introduction to Programming in Java, Prof Yang (Richard) Yang, Spring 2013. View student evaluations
CPSC112, Introduction to Programming in Java, Prof Daniel Abadi, Fall 2012. View student evaluations
CPSC112, Introduction to Programming in Java, Prof Daniel Abadi, Fall 2011.
Projects
Crypto-Book project looking at anonymous communication and identities from social networks. In collaboration with Dr David Isaac Wolinsky and Prof Bryan Ford.SeeMail email tracker. Featured on Techcrunch tech blog. In collaboration with Frank Wu, founder of Lost in the Sound, Jonathan Chang, Mike Wu and Charles Jin.
FreeDNS, a novel DNS system based on cryptographic IDs as names. In collaboration with Dr Ramki Gummadi, Prof Avi Silberschatz, and Prof Bryan Ford.
I have competed in hackathons at Yale and Princeton - details are on my Hacker League profile.
Awards
Yale University FellowshipSOSP student scholarship
Diversity '13 scholarship
Third prize (a Microsoft Kinect) in Diversity '13 poster competition sponsored by Microsoft, judged by Rebecca Isaacs.
Friends
I used to share an office with Xueyuan Su and now share with Swara Kopparty.Thanks to Naser AlDuaij for the website template used on this site. Check out a video of his research project (Columbia Cycada).
SSH Public Key
Download my SSH public key.Interesting Ivy League Articles/Links
How to be an Ivy League studentYale: for God, Country, and Success
39 Unexpected Effects Of Your Ivy League Education
41 Signs You Went To Yale
The Most Exclusive Private Clubs In New York City [Yale Club]
Last updated: 07/23/2015.