SRI Seminar Series: Thomas Ristenpart [HYBRID EVENT]

The SRI Seminar Series welcomes Thomas Ristenpart, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Ristenpart's research spans a wide range of computer security topics, including digital privacy and safety in contexts of interpersonal violence, anti-abuse measures for encrypted messaging systems, authentication mechanisms, and applied and theoretical cryptography.

In this session, Ristenpart will examine a threat model that computer security has largely overlooked: one in which the adversary is not a distant criminal or state actor, but someone within the victim's own social circle. A growing body of evidence shows that abusers exploit everyday technologies—spyware, social media, location trackers, compromised accounts—to monitor, harass, and intimidate the people closest to them. Drawing on his research and advocacy in contexts of intimate partner violence and human trafficking, Ristenpart will describe an advocate-scientist approach that combines direct clinical assistance for survivors, systemic policy advocacy, and basic research, and will invite participants to consider how technology might be designed to hold up against threats that originate close to home.

This session will be presented both in person at the University of Toronto’s Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus and online.

Venue for in-person attendees:

, University of Toronto, Room W762 (seventh floor)

Entrance: 108 College St, Toronto, ON M5G 0C6

“For all tomorrow’s survivors: Computer security in interpersonal threat models”

Computer security is traditionally about the protection of digital systems from adversaries such as criminals or governments. In this talk, I will explore interpersonal threat models, in which the adversary is a member of the victim's social circles---an intimate partner, family member, or other close acquaintance---and who seeks to cause harm to the victim, not just their technology. Such threat models are a widespread and increasingly severe problem, and their study opens up a new frontier for computer security research and practice.

This perspective has emerged from my research and advocacy in the context of interpersonal abuse contexts such as intimate partner violence (IPV) and human trafficking. We now have a body of research detailing the multifaceted and damaging ways in which abusers exploit technology to harass, impersonate, threaten, monitor, intimidate, and otherwise harm their target via spyware, social media, tracking tools, account compromise, and more. To make progress, I take an advocate-scientist approach that blends ongoing evidence-based design and delivery of clinics that directly assist survivors suffering tech abuse; systemic advocacy for new laws and policies; and basic research into how to design technology to improve its security in the face of interpersonal threats. The latter requires understanding and resolving complex tensions between interpersonal and traditional threat models. I will discuss a few examples of my group's recent research towards resolving these tensions in contexts such as account security, location tracking technologies, and AI.

Note: The talk will include discussion of physical, sexual, and emotional violence.

Moderator: David Lie, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto

Thomas Ristenpart is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He was previously a faculty member at Cornell Tech and the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University since May 2015, and before that spent four and a half years as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He completed his PhD at UC San Diego in 2010. Ristenpart’s research spans a wide range of computer security topics, with recent focuses including digital privacy and safety in interpersonal violence, anti-abuse mitigations for encrypted messaging systems, improvements to authentication mechanisms including passwords, and topics in applied and theoretical cryptography. His work is routinely featured in the media and has been recognized by numerous distinguished paper awards, three ACM CCS Test-of-Time Awards, one USENIX Security Test-of-Time Award, an Advocate of New York City Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship.

The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society’s research community and wider audiences for a robust exchange of ideas that advances scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars feature leading and emerging scholars and provide substantial opportunities for discussion.

Each seminar includes a presentation and an open discussion, with the format varying according to the speaker and topic. Registered attendees will receive a Zoom link before the event. Select seminars may be recorded and made available online.

Event venue & nearby stays

U of T: Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, 108 College Street, Toronto, Canada

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