CRCS Lunch Seminar

Date: Monday, April 8, 2013
Time: 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Place: Maxwell Dworkin G125

Speaker: Brian Levine, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Title: Fighting Internet-based Sexual Exploitation Crimes Against Children

Abstract: For several years, my research group has been developing strategies to fight online child sexual exploitation, working with a team of sociologists and investigators. Our tools are used daily by law enforcement in the US and other countries, acquiring evidence in many thousands of cases of child pornography. In a portion of the cases, children were rescued. Using data and results from our project, I will provide an analysis of Internet-based child pornography crimes. I’ll illustrate our approach to problems in network-based criminal investigation by presenting summaries of our completed works and works in progress. Our research focus has been on empirical analysis and interdisciplinary collaboration. I’ll discuss the challenges we face and how we’ve addressed them in practice.

I will use our project’s results to support two larger points. First, I will argue for a research agenda in digital forensics that is based on empirical observations of crimes, sociological analysis of the perpetrators, and full understanding of the needs of and restrictions on investigators; such an agenda also advances privacy research, a field I continue to work in. Second, I’ll contrast our work with projects that focus on protecting corporations and individuals from technical flaws in our infrastructure. Even if “fully secured”, the Internet would still play a role aiding and abetting crimes that harm persons directly; interdisciplinary work has a greater chance at addressing problems beyond technical flaws.

Bio: Brian Levine is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which he joined in 1999. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1999. His research focuses on mobile networks, forensics, privacy, and the Internet. He received an NSF CAREER award in 2002. He was a UMass Lilly Teaching Fellow in 2003 and was awarded his college’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 2007. In 2008, he received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Science & Technology from the Univ. at Albany. In 2011, he was awarded his college’s Outstanding Research Award. He was TPC co-chair of ACM MobiCom 2011, and TPC co-chair of the 2011 and 2012 DFRWS Annual Forensics Research Conferences. This talk is based in part on NSF award CNS-1018615.