@conference {528, title = {Data Cooperatives for Neighborhood Watch}, booktitle = {2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC)}, year = {2021}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Sydney, Australia}, abstract = {

The increasing proliferation of user data is moving the world from the era of {\textquoteright}big data{\textquoteright} to a new era of shared data, and some are considering data as a factor of production that is paving the way for a new business economy. In this paper, we propose a solution that uses blockchain technology as a platform for online neighborhood watch using a form of data cooperative among individuals or organizations in the sharing of data through a peer-to-peer mechanism. We prove the concept by implementing a distributed phishing data sharing system that will maintain a community ledger of reported phishing activities with a consensus-based approval of the phishing transaction and a novel reputation scoring system thereby adding reliability to the system and effectively tackling the phishing problem. The data cooperative provides a way for timely multi-party sharing of phishing data among anti-phishing organizations and users of the internet eliminating the current approach of each organization maintaining its database. Our results show that blockchain is effective in complementing the existing methods of phishing detection and serves as a platform for sharing phishing data with respect to scalability, cost, and memory consumption. Also, our results further show that transaction times on the Ropsten test net follow a Gamma distribution. Our approach can be extrapolated to other data sharing systems like medical data, spam calls, discussion forums, etc.

}, keywords = {blockchain, Cybersecurity, data cooperative, data sharing, distributed ledger, peer-to- peer, phishing, smart contract}, isbn = {978-1-6654-3578-9}, doi = {10.1109/ICBC51069.2021.9461056}, url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9461056}, author = {Salau, Abiola and Dantu, Ram and Upadhyay, Kritagya} } @article {415, title = {Detecting driver distraction using stimuli-response EEG analysis}, journal = {CoRR}, volume = {abs/1904.09100}, year = {2019}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09100}, author = {Bajwa, Garima and Fazeen, Mohamed and Dantu, Ram} } @conference {409, title = {Distributed Ledger for Spammers{\textquoteright} Resume}, booktitle = {2019 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS)}, year = {2019}, month = {June}, abstract = {

Unsolicited, and most likely spoofed, robot calls are not just an annoyance, but also carry a potential threat with the onset of automation, impersonation, and even voice manipulation technologies as malicious elements attempt to use deception to steal sensitive information or invoke action. Despite steps taken to protect consumers, the issue appears to be far from under control. In this paper, we propose a solution to use blockchain as a platform to share spam transactions through a peer-to-peer mechanism that will maintain a global database of reported spam transactions in order to identify and trace spam activity effectively. Storing spam transactions on a distributed ledger with consensus-based approval of transactions adds reliability to the data and can optimize the data points that will be available to spam detection algorithms in order to fight spam effectively. As this is peer to peer-based sharing, there is no need to rely on third-party providers for storing and sharing this data to the users. Every spam call received will be added as a detailed transaction on the blockchain to execute a smart contract that will calculate the trustworthiness of the caller. Call records are used to identify spam transactions while the blockchain ledgers store this data. We discuss the relevance and advantages of a distributed ledger to store these transactions. This paper does not aim at solving the spam problem with an optimized detection algorithm but evaluates the characteristics and performance of the blockchain as a distributed ledger and its relevance to serve as a platform for peer-to-peer spam detection mechanisms. We evaluate different blockchain metrics like transaction processing rates, gas costs and ledger sizes and discuss how they scale in order to store the spam reports data on the blockchain.

}, keywords = {blockchain, Peer-to-peer, Robocalls, smart contract, Spam detection}, doi = {10.1109/CNS.2019.8802789}, author = {Muttavarapu, Anudeep and Dantu, Ram and Thompson, Mark} } @conference {322, title = {A Decentralized Marketplace Application on the Ethereum Blockchain}, booktitle = {IEEE 4th International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC)}, year = {2018}, month = {10/2018}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Philadelphia, PA, USA}, abstract = {

Modern centralized online marketplaces such as eBay offer an alternative option for consumers to both sell and purchase goods with relative ease. However, drawbacks to these marketplaces include the platform{\textquoteright}s ability to block merchants at their own whim, the fees paid to the platform when listing a product and when selling a product, and the lack of privacy of users{\textquoteright} data. In this paper, we propose an application that remedies all three of these drawbacks through use of the Ethereum blockchain platform. The application was developed using the Truffle development framework. The application{\textquoteright}s functions were contained within an Ethereum smart contract, which was then migrated to the Ethereum network. The user{\textquoteright}s input was read through a web interface and sent to the Ethereum network via the web3.js API. Statistics about the application were gathered on the Rinkeby test network. The application was shown to have an average transaction runtime of 3.8 seconds, and an average gas consumption of 4.6 wei. Contract creation times for the application were shown to be less than a second. A cost analysis of the application was then conducted. The gas consumption of the transactions needed to both buy and sell a product was converted into US dollars, and the gas cost of the application was then compared to the cost to use an online auction marketplace such as eBay as well as an in-person auction house such as Sotheby{\textquoteright}s. The results showed that selling on the application is cheaper than existing online options as well as existing in-person options. These tests showed that our application was successful in addressing the drawbacks of current auction marketplaces.

}, keywords = {API, application program interfaces, auction marketplaces, average gas consumption, blockchain, centralized online marketplaces, Computer science, contract creation times, cost analysis, Cryptocurrency, decentralized, decentralized marketplace application, e-commerce, eBay, electronic commerce, Ethereum, Ethereum blockchain platform, Ethereum network, Ethereum smart contract, gas cost, human factors, in-person options, Internet, marketplace, Measurement, online auction marketplace, online options, peer-to-peer computing, Rinkeby test network, security of data, smart contract, Truffle development framework, user data, user interfaces, Web interface}, doi = {10.1109/CIC.2018.00023}, author = {Ranganthan, Vishnu Prasad and Ram Dantu and Paul, Aditya and Mears, Paula and Morozov, Kirill} } @conference {61, title = {Defense Against SPIT Using Community Signals}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics}, year = {2009}, publisher = {IEEE Press}, organization = {IEEE Press}, address = {Piscataway, NJ, USA}, abstract = {

Internet telephony has recently gained popularity. Voice over IP (VoIP) has emerged as an alternative to the current public switched telephone network (PSTN) system due to its cost efficiency. Spam inherently becomes a problem in VoIP networks. In this paper, we present our ongoing research in defending VoIP networks against spam by presenting a new defense mechanism using community signals.

}, isbn = {978-1-4244-4171-6}, url = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1706428.1706481}, author = {Phithakkitnukoon, Santi and Ram Dantu} } @conference {38, title = {Discovery of Social Groups Using Call Detail Records}, booktitle = {On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2008 Workshops}, year = {2008}, month = {11/2008}, publisher = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, organization = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, address = {Monterrey, Mexico}, abstract = {

In this paper we propose the affinity model for classifying social groups based on mobile phone call detail records. We use affinity to measure the similarity between probability distributions. Since phone calls are stochastic process, it makes more sense to use probability affinity to classify the social groups. This work is useful for enhancing homeland security, detecting unwanted calls (e.g., spam) and product marketing. For validation of our results, we used actual call logs of 100 users collected at MIT by the Reality Mining Project group for a period of 8 months. The experimental results show that our model achieves good performance with high accuracy.

}, isbn = {978-3-540-88875-8}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-540-88875-8_72}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88875-8_72}, author = {Zhang, Huiqi and Ram Dantu}, editor = {Meersman, Robert and Tari, Zahir and Herrero, Pilar} } @conference {239, title = {Detecting phishing in emails}, booktitle = {Proceedings of MIT Spam Conference}, year = {2006}, author = {Palla, Srikanth and Ram Dantu} } @article {79, title = {Dynamic resource management in QoS controlled networks}, journal = {Telecommunication Systems}, volume = {32}, year = {2006}, pages = {11{\textendash}30}, abstract = {

This paper addresses the problem of resource fragmentation (RF) in QoS controllednetworks. Resources are said to be fragmented when they are available in non-contiguousblocks and hence cannot be utilized by incoming calls with high resource demands. This paper shows the effect of resource fragmentation on QoS controlled networks and presents the Dynamic Resource Redistribution (DRR) algorithm to counteract RF. The DRR algorithm reduces the effects of RF by attempting to redistribute resources in different paths to make resources to incoming calls. A variety of simulation experiments were conducted to study the performance of the DRR algorithm on different network topologies with varying traffic characteristics. The DRR algorithm, when used, increased the number of calls accommodated in the network as well as the overall resource allocation in the network.

}, issn = {1572-9451}, doi = {10.1007/s11235-006-8200-4}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11235-006-8200-4}, author = {Prasanna, Venkatesan and Mikler, Armin and Ram Dantu and Abbas, Kaja} } @conference {7, title = {Detecting Spam in VoIP Networks}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Steps to Reducing Unwanted Traffic on the Internet Workshop}, year = {2005}, publisher = {USENIX Association}, organization = {USENIX Association}, address = {Berkeley, CA, USA}, abstract = {

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a key enabling technology for the migration of circuit-switched PSTN architectures to packetbased networks. The problem of spam in VoIP networks has to be solved in real time compared to e-mail systems. Many of the techniques devised for e-mail spam detection rely upon content analysis and in the case of VoIP it is too late to analyze the media after picking up the receiver. So we need to stop the spam calls before the telephone rings. From our observation, when it comes to receiving or rejecting a voice call people use social meaning of trust and reputation of the calling party. In this paper, we describe a multi-stage spam filter based on trust, and reputation for detecting the spam. In particular we used closed loop feedback between different stages in deciding if the incoming call is a spam or not. For verifying the concepts, we used a laboratory setup of several thousand soft-phones and a commercial grade proxy server. We verified our filtering mechanisms by simulating the spam calls and measured the accuracy of the filter. Results show that multistage feedback loop fares better than any single stage. Also, the larger the network size, the harder to detect a spam call. Further work includes understanding the behavior of different controlling parameters in trust and reputation calculations and deriving meaningful relationships between them.

}, url = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1251282.1251287}, author = {Ram Dantu and Kolan, Prakash} } @conference {48, title = {Data centric modeling of environmental sensor networks}, booktitle = {Global Telecommunications Conference Workshops, 2004. GlobeCom Workshops 2004. IEEE}, year = {2004}, month = {Nov}, abstract = {

Meteorological and hydrological sensors deployed over several hundred kilometers of geographical area comprise an environmental sensor network. Large amounts of data need to be processed in minimal time and transmitted over the available low speed and low bandwidth links. This paper describes algorithms for optimal data collection and data fusion. An inductive model using exponential back-off policy is used to collect optimal amount of data. The data measurements for temperature, pH and specific conductance collected for a year from the sensors deployed at Lake Lewisville are used to test the inductive model. Energy savings of 90\% are achieved even with 1\% of degree of tolerance. The problem of data fusion is addressed by the introduction of a novel concept of a super-sensor, based on self-organization and collaboration among sensors. A histogram application is described that uses recursive doubling for global collaboration between sensors. The performance of the networked super-sensor in comparison to a centralized polling approach is analyzed for optimality on two different geographical areas.

}, keywords = {Bandwidth, biosensors, data centric modeling, data fusion, environmental sensor network, exponential back-off policy, Histograms, hydrological sensor, International collaboration, Lakes, meteorological, Meteorology, networked super-sensor, optimal data collection, sensor fusion, Sensor phenomena and characterization, Temperature measurement, temperature sensors, Testing}, doi = {10.1109/GLOCOMW.2004.1417621}, author = {Ram Dantu and Abbas, Kaja and O{\textquoteright}Neill, Marty and Mikler, Armin} } @article {187, title = {Differences between VoIP and Data Security}, year = {2004}, month = {09/2004}, publisher = {Internet2 workshop on VoIP}, address = {Austin, Texas, USA}, author = {Ram Dantu} } @conference {19, title = {Dynamic Control of Worm Propagation}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing (ITCC{\textquoteright}04) Volume 2 - Volume 2}, year = {2004}, publisher = {IEEE Computer Society}, organization = {IEEE Computer Society}, address = {Washington, DC, USA}, isbn = {0-7695-2108-8}, url = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=977403.978411}, author = {Ram Dantu and Cangussu, Jo{\~a}o and Yelimeli, Arun} } @article {276, title = {Depth perception using blurring and its application in VLSI wafer probing}, journal = {Machine Vision and Applications}, volume = {5}, year = {1992}, month = {12/1992}, pages = {35{\textendash}45}, abstract = {

In this paper, we present a technique for measuring the amount of blur of an edge and using this information to determine the distance of a micromanipulator probe from a wafer surface in very large scale integration (VLSI) wafer probing. In this application, a soft and reliable touch of the probe with a metal pad in the wafer is a sensitive operation. The wafer is focused and several images of the probe while approaching the wafer are analyzed. In our theory, the amount of blur is calculated from the height of the step edge and the slope of the intensity profile at the zero crossing. Hence, our formula is simple and easy to use. We estimate the distance of the probe from the surface of the wafer and obtain a robust measure, i.e., one which is valid even in the presence of significant noise in the images. In order to validate our methods, we have experimented with various VLSI patterns as backgrounds.

}, issn = {1432-1769}, doi = {10.1007/BF01213528}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01213528}, author = {Ram Dantu and Dimopoulos, Nikitas and Patel, Rajni and Al-Khalili, Asim} }