Nikita Borisov

Assistant Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office Hours: 3-4PM Thursdays Calendar

Research Interests

My research interests lie in the area of computer security and privacy, especially as applied to large-scale distributed systems. My current focus is on anonymity: analysis of existing anonymous systems and the design of new peer-to-peer anonymous networks. In this research I take a systems approach, with rigorous, quantitative metrics of anonymity and analysis with help from simulations. I am also interested in other privacy enhancing technologies, such as techniques for privacy-preserving data aggregation, as well as research into building reliable and secure peer-to-peer networks.

For more information about some of my recent work, see my publication list.

Teaching

In Fall 2009, I am teaching CS/ECE 598 MAN: Applied Cryptography with Manoj Prabhakaran.

• Spring'09: ECE391: Computer Systems Engineering.
• Fall'07: CS/ECE 438: Communication Networks.
• Spring'07: CS498IA Introduction to Computer Security (now CS461/ECE422).
• Fall'06: CS/ECE 438: Communication Networks.
• Spring'06: ECE598NB, a special topics course on Privacy Enhancing Technologies.
• Fall'05: CS498CAG (aka CS463): Computer Security, co-taught with Prof. Carl A. Gunter (now CS461/ECE424).

Affiliations

Program committee member for: NDSS'10, WiSec'10, IEEE S&P'10, USENIX Security'10, PETS'10, CCS'10

Assistant Research Professor at the Coordinated Science Laboratory, Affiliate Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer Science, and a member of the Information Trust Institute.

Past Projects

• Off-the-Record Messaging is a protocol for private and authentic instant messaging, with plugins available for popular IM clients.
• ISAAC Research Group was a small group of computer security researchers at Berkeley. We found a number of security flaws in 802.11
• The Ninja project aimed to provide an framework for scalable Internet services.

Background

I received my Ph.D. and master's degrees from the Computer Science Division at UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. Eric Brewer. For my undergraduate degree, I attended University of Waterloo, where I got a B.Math in Computer Science and Pure Math. I've also spent some time at Microsoft Research and Entrust, Inc..

Contact Information

460 Coordinated Science Laboratory, MC-228
1308 West Main Street
Urbana, IL 61801-2307
Tel: +1 (217) 903-4401
Fax: +1 (217) 244-5685
Email: nikita@illinois.edu