Qatar Computing Research Institute

As part of the Senior Staff, I'm leading the Cybersecurity Initiative for Blockchain Research (CIBR) at QCRI. Our research is focused on cybersecurity problems in web3, cryptocurrencies, and related blockchain technologies. We work with our partners on research projects that support the thriving blockchain ecosystem in Qatar and abroad (see linked media).

Before that, in collaboration with the University of British Columbia, I designed and implemented a system for analyzing cryptographic API (mis)use in Android applications. The system was used to analyze more than 120K applications, which include apps of major Qatari stakeholders who accordingly patched their apps.

In collaboration with Ooredoo, a Qatari ISP, along with the Cyber Security team at QCRI, I designed and developed a real-time processing platform for analyzing DRDoS attacks. The system is used for analytics and visualization of these attacks that pass through Qatari ISPs using locally deployed honeypots. The system was deployed by Ooredoo to find the best access control rules that save network bandwidth by blocking the traffic which is attributed to pass-through DRDoS attacks.

In collaboration with Qatar University, I designed and implemented a method to show the feasibility of deanonymizing Tor hidden service users by exploiting public Bitcoin information. Using Bitcoin addresses from 88 hidden services, five billion tweets, and one million BitcoinTalk forum pages, the method was able to link 125 unique users to various hidden services, including sensitive ones, such as The Pirate Bay, Silk Road, and WikiLeaks. This work resulted in a private briefing to the US FTC, in addition to worldwide news coverage.

Research Scientist

Hootsuite Media Inc.

Developed disruptive products, experimented with emerging technologies, and promoted lean innovation. As a full stack engineer, I worked with a wide array of technologies and languages such as Python, Flask, Django, NGINX, Tornado, MongoDB, MySQL, RAML, Blueprint, PHP, Vagrant, Ansible, Javascript, AngularJS, React Native, PhoneGap/Cordova, Objective-C, Java, and Ionic. Along with the Labs team, I developed and released Hootsuite Amplify, an employee advocacy app that resulted in millions of dollars in revenue.

Software Engineer

The University of British Columbia

Motivated by the rise of malicious socialbots, I worked on building scalable and robust defense systems to fight against abusive automation on the (social) web. My research has been covered by many international news outlets (e.g., BBC, CBC, New Scientist), and is currently being used by online services to protect millions of users (e.g., Tuenti, Telefonica).

Research Assistant

Microsoft

Designed, implemented, and evaluated a prototypical DBMS extension to Sketch, a distributed system for exploring large datasets. One application using the Sketch framework is a distributed spreadsheet for summarizing and visualizing large structured data at interactive speeds (i.e., few seconds). While Sketch performs data analytics computation in memory (e.g., summary statistic, histograms), the new extension offloads Sketch computation to a shared-nothing DBMS cluster, enabling interactive exploration of larger datasets that do not fit in the overall cluster memory. Sketch is currently being used at Microsoft for debugging massive server logs and exploring terabytes of social networks data.

Research Intern

Telefónica

Designed, implemented, and evaluated a system for fake account detection in social networking websites. Along with the Big Data team, I deployed the system on top of Mahout and Giraph, where it delivered up to 30% improvement in classification AUC when compared to the state-of-the-art. The system scales nearly linearly with increasing user base, and it is currently being deployed and used in production at Tuenti, the largest Spanish social networking site with more than 15 million active user.

Facebook

Designed, implemented, and evaluated a tera-scale system for IP address reputation and botnet detection. Along with the Site Integrity team, I deployed the system in beta on production servers, where it delivered an additional 25% in detection sensitivity when compared to existing detection systems.

Sophos

Designed, implemented, and evaluated a system for automated malware detection using large-scale machine learning. Along with SophosLabs team, I deployed the system in beta on production servers,
where it achieved 99.9% speciﬁcity and 30% sensitivity in malware detection, in addition to automatically generating effective malware signatures in Virus Definition Language (VDL) format.

HLRS - High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart

Designed, implemented and benchmarked Lattice Boltzmann numerical methods on a massively parallel GPU cluster using CUDA. I integrated the vectorized methods into an existing software framework designed for highly parallel numerical algorithms on super-computers. In order to improve the overall performance, I also extended CUDA basic I/O libraries to reduce memory-bank conﬂicts and coalescing.

Research Engineer

Intel Corp.

Performed performance analysis and code optimization for SAP NetWeaver. I also reported performance bugs in Intel C/C++ Compiler to Intel Compiler team. As an Intel employee working at SAP, I evangelized Intel software tools and technologies to the software community in SAP.

Gave consultation and training on software vecorization using Intel SSE technology. I designed and developed a vectorization framework for decompressing in-memory data structures in TREX, which is the SAP NetWeaver search and classiﬁcation engine. Along with the TREX team, I integrated the framework into SAP NetWeaver, where it achieved up to 2.1x speedup when compared to a highly optimized sequential version.

Software Engineer (Outsourced)

Researcher, writer, developer, and hacker. I like to be challenged. I go after hard software systems problems. I find peace in academic writing, focusing on topics related to computer science and engineering. I strive to be a successful entrepreneur, mostly by trying new things, learning, and connecting with the right people. Ask me about my side projects and hacks. I'm always on the hunt for a qualitatively new opportunity. I work with people not for them. The world is my home and we are all part of it. All other stuff is entertainment.

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