Events Calendar

Vern Paxson: Reflections on Measurement Research: Crooked Lines, Straight Lines, and Moneyshots

Speaker: Vern Paxson, University of California, Berkeley

Talk Title: Reflections on Measurement Research: Crooked Lines, Straight Lines, and Moneyshots

Series: CS Distinguished Lectures

Abstract: In this talk I'll attempt to capture what it is about Internet measurement research that I find stirring and fundamentally compelling, such that I've now spent 20 years pursuing it in various forms. The essence regards the singular moment of discovery. At its best, this process proves uplifting - the concrete appearance of a significant, unintuitive result. But it can instead sometimes simply have its own pleasing aesthetics; or even prove sobering, when empiricism decisively buries a hoped-for result. I will illustrate each of these three types, and try while doing so to illuminate some of the human energy that drives measurement-based research.

Biography: Vern Paxson is a Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and also has affiliations with the International Computer Science Institute and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on network measurement and analysis, high-performance monitoring of Internet traffic to detect malicious activity, and addressing the threat of botnets and the underground economy that they fuel. He is an ACM Fellow, and recipient of the 2008 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award and the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Award for his work on Internet measurement.

Host: Minlan Yu

Location: SSL 150

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Assistant to CS chair