David Zage, Ph.D. Email: zage [at] cerias [dot] net

I am a Ph.D. recipient from the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University under Professor Cristina Nita-Rotaru. While there, I was a member of the Dependable and Secure Distributed Systems Laboratory (DS^2) within The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS). I am currently at Sandia National Laboratories.

Research

My main area of interest lies in creating efficient, robust, and resilient distributed systems, with a focus on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems. The rapid growth of communication networks such as the Internet and ad hoc wireless mesh networks has spurred the development of numerous collaborative P2P systems. It is necessary to provide components and methodologies for creating efficient P2P systems that can tolerate changes in network conditions and are resilient to malicious activity. My work focuses on creating a characterization of the necessary components, their associated security risks, techniques to make each component robust to malicious activity, and a demonstration of how to effectively integrate the components into current systems.

Areas I have investigated include, but are not limited to:

• Scalable Byzantine-resilient replication
• Robust virtual coordinate systems
• Position-based and geographical routing
• Reputation systems and their applicability in distributed systems
• Byzantine attacks against and defense techniques for unstructured multicast networks
• Routing in wireless mesh networks

Curriculum Vitae

Please contact me if you would like a copy of my CV.

Publications

Journal Articles

• Robust Decentralized Virtual Coordinate Systems in Adversarial Environment David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, Volume 13, Issue 4, December 2010.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• STEWARD: Scaling Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Replication to Wide Area Networks Yair Amir, Claudiu Danilov, Danny Dolev, Jonathan Kirsch, John Lane, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, Josh Olsen, David Zage. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2010.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• A Survey of Attack and Defense Techniques for Reputation Systems Kevin Hoffman, David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. ACM Computing Surveys, Volume 42, Issue 1, December 2009.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• A Framework for Mitigating Attacks Against Measurement-Based Adaptation Mechanisms in Unstructured Multicast Overlay Networks AAron Walters, David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Volume 16, Issue 6, December 2008.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]

Conference Articles

• Improving Supply Chain Security Using Big Data David Zage, Kristin Glass, and Richard Colbaugh IEEE Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI), Seattle, Washington, USA, June 4 - 7, 2013.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Harnessing Many-core Processors for Scalable, Highly Efficient, and Adaptable Firewall Solutions Robert Benner, Victor T.E. Echeverria, Uzoma Onunkwo, Jay Patel, and David Zage In the International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), San Diego, California, USA, January 28 - 31, 2013.
  Awarded Best Paper [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Addressing Insider Threat using "Where You Are" as Fourth Factor Authentication Sung Choi and David Zage. In the 46th Annual IEEE International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology (ICCST), Boston, Massachusetts, USA, October 15 - 18, 2012.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Utilizing Linear Subspaces to Improve Cloud Security David Zage and James Obert. In the 42nd IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W), Boston, Massachusetts, USA, June 25 - 28, 2012.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Removing the Blinders: Using Information to Mitigate Adversaries in Adaptive Overlays David Zage, Charles Killian, and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. In the 5th International Conference on Network and System Security (NSS), Milan, Italy, September 6 - 8, 2011.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Applying Game Theory to Analyze Attacks and Defenses in Virtual Coordinate Systems Sheila Becker, Jeff Seibert, David Zage, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, and Radu State. In the 41st IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Hong Kong, China, June 27 - 30, 2011.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• A Network-Aware Distributed Membership Protocol for Collaborative Defense David Zage, Carl Livadas, Eve Schooler. In the 12th IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), Vancouver, Canada, August 29 - 31, 2009.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Experimental Comparison of Peer-to-Peer Streaming Overlays: An Application Perspective Jeff Seibert, David Zage, Sonia Fahmy, Cristina Nita-Rotaru. In the 33rd IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, October 14 - 17, 2008.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• On the Accuracy of Decentralized Network Coordinate Systems in Adversarial Networks David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. In the 14th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Alexandria, Virginia, USA, October 29 - November 2, 2007.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX] [Experimental Code]
• Mitigating Attacks Against Measurement-Based Adaptation Mechanisms in Unstructured Multicast Overlay Networks AAron Walters, David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. In the 14th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), Santa Barbara, California, USA, November 12 - 15, 2006.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• Scaling Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Systems to Wide Area Networks Yair Amir, Claudiu Danilov, Danny Dolev, Jonathan Kirsch, John Lane, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, Josh Olsen, David Zage. In the 36th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, June 25 - 28, 2006.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX] Full Technical Report CNDS-2006-2

Short Papers and Posters

• Removing the Blinders: Utilizing Data-Plane Information to Mitigate Adversaries in Unstructured Multicast Networks David Zage, Charles Killian, and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. Second Place Poster. In the 10th Annual CERIAS Information Security Symposium, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, March 2009.
  [PDF]
• Robust Virtual Coordinate Systems with Byzantine Participants David Zage PhD Student Forum In the 37th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Edinburgh, United Kingdom, June 2007.
  [Abstract] [PDF] [BIBTEX]
• On the Accuracy of Decentralized Network Coordinate Systems in Adversarial Networks David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. Third Place Poster. In the 8th Annual CERIAS Information Security Symposium, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, March 2007.
  [PDF]
• Byzantine Resilient Distributed Position Service Josh Olsen, David Zage and Cristina Nita-Rotaru. Extended Abstract. In the 36th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, June 2006.
  [PDF]

Coursework

The following are selected courses (in numerical order) related to my research that I took while at Purdue University.

• CS 502 Compiling and Programming Systems
• CS 503 Operating Systems
• CS 525 Parallel Computing
• CS 526 Information Security
• CS 541 Database Systems
• CS 555 Cryptography
• CS 580 Algorithm Design, Analysis, and Implementation
• CS 590N Data Center Architecture
• CS 590R Randomized Algorithms
• CS 590T Insider Threats to Information Systems
• CS 590W Wireless Network Security
• CS 603 Distributed Systems
• STAT 511 Statistical Methods

Personal

As for a bit about what I like to do in my spare time (does that exist?); I love to travel and dance competitively. When I have a chance, I will place some pictures up here. Until then here is an interesting link or two:

• Purdue Ballroom Dance Team

Last updated on April 29, 2013