I lead the Network Operations and
Internet Security Lab at Georgia Tech.
I am always looking for strong students who are interested in computer
networking, particularly network operations and security.
Please apply to the graduate
program if my research sounds interesting to you.
Research
My research develops tools, techniques, and protocols to improve the
availability and performance of communications networks in the face of
failures, misconfiguration, and malice. Simply put, I try to help
network operators do their jobs better.
Please see my lab's project web page for a list
of current and past projects.
Please see this research statement
(Jan. 2009) for an overview of the research areas where my students
and I are most active.
Research area. My research focuses on networked computer systems,
with a strong emphasis on (1) network operations; (2)
network architecture and protocol design; (3) high performance (i.e.,
high availability, high throughput) wired and wireless networks; and (4)
anti-censorship techniques and systems.
Goal. The primary goal of my research is to help network
operators run their networks better, and to enable users of these
networks to experience high availability and good end-to-end
performance. I am strongly interested in tackling practical, real-world
problems using a ``first principles'' approach, designing systems based
on these principles, and implementing and deploying these systems in
practice.
Approach. My research runs "from practice, to theory, back to
practice". I look to the real world for inspiration and practical
problems. I then design solutions to these problems that have provable
properties and solid theoretical backing. Finally, I build and deploy
real systems based on these solutions. This first principles approach
means that I bring many "tools" to bear, from algorithms to economics to
machine learning. I place a strong emphasis on transfer of these
results back to practice: the resulting tools and algorithms have been
adopted or applied in practice.
Papers
Here are some
recent papers (complete list, lab list):
-
Behavioral Clustering of HTTP-based Malware and Signature Generation
using Malicious Network Traces
R. Perdisci, W. Lee, N. Feamster
USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and
Implementation (NSDI),
San Jose, CA, April 2010. To appear
- Detecting Network Neutrality Violations with Causal
Inference
M. Tariq, M. Motiwala, N. Feamster, M. Ammar
ACM SIGCOMM CoNext,
Rome, Italy, December 2009.
- Measurement Methods for Fast and Accurate Blackhole
Identification with Binary Tomography
I. Cunha, R. Teixeira, N. Feamster, C. Diot
ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference,
Chicago, Illinois, November 2009.
- Characterizing VLAN-Induced Sharing in a Campus
Network
A. Mansy, M. Tariq, N. Feamster, M. Ammar
ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference,
Chicago, Illinois, November 2009.
- Detecting Spammers with SNARE: Spatio-Temporal
Network-Level Automated Reputation Engine
S. Hao, N. Feamster, A. Gray, N. Syed, S. Krasser
18th USENIX Security Symposium,
Montreal, Canada, August 2009.
[.pdf]
- Resonance: Inference-based Dynamic Access Control for
Enterprise Networks
A. Nayak, A. Reimers, N. Feamster, R. Clark
ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Research on Enterprise Networks,
Barcelona, Spain, August 2009.
[.pdf]
- Building a Fast, Virtualized Data Plane with
Programmable Hardware
B. Anwer, N. Feamster
ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Virtualized Infastructure Systems
and Architectures
Barcelona, Spain, August 2009.
[.pdf]
Top-Ranked Paper, fast-tracked to ACM SIGCOMM Computer
Communications Review
- Dynamics of Online Scam Hosting Infrastructure
M. Konte, N. Feamster, J. Jung
Proc. Passive and Actice Measurement Conference (PAM),
Seoul, Korea, April 2009.
[.pdf]
Award Paper (Data)
- NANO: Network Access Neutrality Observatory
M. Tariq, M. Motiwala, N. Feamster
Proc. ACM SIGCOMM HotNets VII,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 2008.
[.pdf]
- Fast Monitoring of Traffic Subpopulations
A. Ramachandran, S. Seetharaman, N. Feamster, V. Vazirani
Proc. ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference,
Vouliagmeni, Greece, October 2008.
[.pdf]
- Path Splicing
M. Motiwala, M. Elmore, N. Feamster, S. Vempala
Proc. ACM SIGCOMM,
Seattle, WA, August 2008.
[.pdf]
- Answering What-If Deployment and Configuration
Questions with WISE
M. Tariq, A. Zeitoun, V. Valancius, N. Feamster, M. Ammar
Proc. ACM SIGCOMM,
Seattle, WA, August 2008.
[.pdf]
- Accountable Internet Protocol (AIP)
D. Andersen, H. Balakrishnan, N. Feamster, T. Koponen, D. Moon,
S. Shenker
Proc. ACM SIGCOMM,
Seattle, WA, August 2008.
[.pdf]
Teaching
Spring 2009 - CS 6262:
Network Security
Fall 2008
- CS 4251:
Computer Networking II [Previous terms: Spring 2008]
Fall 2008 - CS 7001: Introduction to Graduate Studies [Previous
terms: Fall
2007, Fall 2006]
Spring 2007 - CS 7260:
Internet Architectures and Protocols [Previous terms: Spring 2006]
Fall 2006 - CS 8001: Networking Research
Seminar
