computer engineering

Izraelevitz aims to make complex memory technologies visible to programmers with CAREER Award

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 22:22:36 +0000

Izraelevitz aims to make complex memory technologies visible to programmers with CAREER Award Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/05/2023 - 16:22

Emily Adams

Joe Izraelevitz

Much like computing itself, the landscape of computer memory is rapidly changing. In addition to random-access memory (RAM), caches and hard drives, we now have technologies like non-volatile memory, non-uniform memory access and encrypted memory.

The problem, according to Assistant Professor Joe Izraelevitz of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, is that this new memory landscape is not visible to the programmers who are writing code for today’s machines.

“There are these distinctions about memory that the programmer might not be aware of,” he said. “There are actually a lot of layers in between the processor and memory.”

Izraelevitz plans to use a recent CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to begin providing that visibility. He wants to develop extensions to programming languages that would allow coders to explicitly control where data is stored.

He uses the example of network-accessible memory, which is directly readable by a remote computer. Programmers wouldn’t want to rely on that type of memory for sensitive data, but they currently have to trust the hardware to make the best decision about where to store information. They may also need to know about persistent memory, which helps assure that data isn’t lost in a power outage.

“We’re looking at how to expose this complicated landscape to the programmer in an efficient way,” Izraelevitz said. “By agreeing on a common language between the programmer and the rest of the stack, we can enforce that and make the programmer say, ‘I want this secret’ or ‘I want this persistent.’ Then we can take action through the compiler.”

He said these memory challenges have existed for a while, but the penalty for not solving them has mainly been performance issues, rather than safety and data security.

“I can't just assume the hardware is going to do the right thing,” Izraelevitz said. “The downside of it guessing wrong isn’t a performance hit. It's data loss or secrets lost or data inaccessible.”

Izraelevitz, who served as a U.S. Army officer between finishing his undergraduate degree and starting his PhD, believes that intersection with security makes the research area a promising one for those with a military background. He plans to use part of the CAREER Award to provide financial support to students on a GI Bill who need to build their technical skills with a master’s degree before pursuing their PhD.

Izraelevitz earned his PhD from the University of Rochester and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego before joining the CU Boulder faculty in 2019. He also completed research internships at Oracle and HP Labs, as well as a limited-stay postdoc at IMDEA Software in Madrid.

CAREER Awards provide approximately $500,000 over five years for junior faculty members “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.” In addition to the funding provided, Izraelevitz said the award was a chance to reflect on the future trajectory of his research.

“It's an interesting exercise to write this grant proposal because I've been forced to think so long term about where to go with my research,” he said. “It makes you really think about where the research, technology, science and industry are going and how you can have an impact there.”

Assistant Professor Joe Izraelevitz of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering will use a prestigious NSF CAREER to develop extensions to programming languages that would allow programmers to explicitly control where data is stored.

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CU Boulder lands $750K research grant for 5G communications security

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 15:27:06 +0000

CU Boulder lands $750K research grant for 5G communications security Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/24/2022 - 09:27

Two ECEE researchers are involved in a unique military-oriented project to enable secure use of 5G networks that may be controlled by an adversary.

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Wustrow will use CAREER Award to fight Internet censorship

Anonymous — Mon, 09 May 2022 20:17:04 +0000

Wustrow will use CAREER Award to fight Internet censorship Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/09/2022 - 14:17

Emily Adams

When Assistant Professor Eric Wustrow began studying ways to combat Internet censorship as a graduate student, he thought it would be a short-lived project. He said he expected governments to see that censoring the Internet was not a viable long-term solution and give up their efforts.

“I could not have been more wrong about that,” he said. “Since then, censors have doubled down on their efforts and have made more sophisticated and more complex infrastructure to block and censor the internet. It's been fascinating to watch that evolve and find ways to circumvent it.”

Wustrow, who is based in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, recently received a CAREER Award, a $569,000, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to further his computer engineering research into how censorship can be fought from within networks.

As of 2018, over half of Internet users worldwide lived in countries that censor political, social or religious content online, Wustrow explained. And because much of the research into censorship relies on in-country vantage points, the censors hold the upper hand – they can see what is being monitored and more easily block circumvention tools like proxy servers.

To level that playing field, Wustrow plans to deploy passive measurement and circumvention tools at Internet service providers (ISPs) outside of the censoring countries.

Those passive taps will allow his team to observe tell-tale signs of censorship, such as prematurely terminated connections and “missing” expected traffic. They can then use that information to better camouflage circumvention tools, with protocols, packet sizes, timings and configurations that mimic “normal,” non-censored traffic.

The new techniques build on some of Wustrow’s previous successes with refraction networking, which today supports Internet freedom for more than 1 million users, with the backing of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

“I've always been really passionate about finding ways to apply engineering and security principles for good, helping people to get autonomy and access to information in places where they otherwise wouldn't,” Wustrow said.

To share that passion with others, his CAREER proposal includes developing an undergraduate course in censorship circumvention and creating video content for non-technical audiences – including translated versions targeted toward those in censored countries. Wustrow also looks forward to continuing to collaborate with others on the legal, policy and human rights sides of Internet freedom.

The CAREER award is the most prestigious program for early career faculty by the National Science Foundation. It is designed to support junior faculty members “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.” Six faculty members from the College of Engineering and Applied Science received NSF CAREER Awards in 2022.

With the $569,000, five-year grant from the NSF, he plans to explore how censorship can be fought from within networks using passive measurement and circumvention tools at Internet service providers (ISPs).

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Research in Focus: How Tamara Silbergleit Lehman balances security and performance

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 20:34:22 +0000

Research in Focus: How Tamara Silbergleit Lehman balances security and performance Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/05/2022 - 13:34

In her computer engineering lab, Assistant Professor Tamara Silbergleit Lehman and her team are exploring ways to make computing devices more secure, while also maintaining performance.

“We all love the way that our phones work — as fast as we need them to and as responsive as we need them to,” she says. “But that doesn’t really matter if you can’t trust your device.”

They focus on security at the hardware level, including a new project on how to prevent attacks on the GPUs in health diagnostic devices.

Check out the video to learn more about what she looks for in her graduate students and the “happy, collaborative” environment students will find in electrical, computer and energy engineering at CU Boulder.

[video:https://youtu.be/reL_mClsKkY]

In her computer engineering lab, Assistant Professor Tamara Silbergleit Lehman and her team are exploring ways to make computing devices more secure, while also maintaining performance.

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