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Democrats advance internet voting bill that worries security experts
Democratic lawmakers in Michigan have advanced legislation to expand internet voting overseas in a way that worries election security experts, including Prof. J. Halderman, who is quoted in this article.UM expert testifies on the dangers of AI in banking
An interview with CSE Chair Michael Wellman on the potential risks posed by AI use in the financial sector and a discussion of his recent testimony to the U.S. Senate on this topic.U-M gets $17.5M for outbreak response network at SPH
CSE faculty Rada Mihalcea, Jenna Wiens, and Alex Rodríguez are part of U-M’s newly launched Michigan Public Health Integrated Center for Outbreak Analytics and Modeling, or MICOM, which will receive a $17.5 million grant over five years from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be part of a national network of centers focused on predicting and responding to future disease outbreaks.MIDAS gets $2.3M to develop national training program
H.V. Jagadish, the Edgar F. Codd Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the Bernard A. Galler Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and director of MIDAS is quoted on MIDAS’s goal of effecting institutional transformation by enabling and sharing training materials.Voting online is very risky. But hundreds of thousands of people are already doing it.
This article covers Michigan’s bill that would expand internet voting to military members’ families. Prof. J. Alex Halderman, who opposes internet voting, is quoted.Making your phone screen blurry could stop people snooping on you
This article discusses Eye-Shield, a screen protection system designed by Prof. Kang G. Shin and PhD student Brian Tang that can prevent people from reading your phone from a distance while still remaining legible up close.Researchers tout Battery Sleuth technology as disruption in vehicle security
This article highlights Battery Sleuth, a technology developed by Kevin and Nancy O’Connor Professor of Computer Science Kang G. Shin and Prof. Liang He at University of Colorado Denver that could represent a new, more secure approach to vehicle security.U-M researchers studying ‘Battery Sleuth’ that could protect your car from being stolen
In the WXYZ-TV Detroit news segment, Kevin and Nancy O’Connor Professor of Computer Science Kang G. Shin is interviewed about Battery Sleuth, which provides a simple way to thwart hackers aiming to steal cars.From a lab in Ann Arbor, fighting internet censorship around the world
This in-depth profile spotlights Prof. Roya Ensafi, her motivations, and the work she is doing to defend and open internet.A Surprisingly Simple Way to Foil Car Thieves
The Communications of the ACM has highlighted news from U-M on Battery Sleuth, a technology developed by Kevin and Nancy O’Connor Professor of Computer Science Kang G. Shin and his collaborators that provides a simple way to thwart hackers aiming to steal cars.Old-tech solution may protect high-tech car in new ways from auto hacking, theft
The Detroit Free Press discusses Battery Sleuth, the vehicle security system developed by Prof. Kang G. Shin and his team that uses the auxiliary power outlet to help safeguard cars from hacking and other forms of mishap and theft.The case against allowing internet voting in Michigan
This articles discusses continuing security concerns surrounding online voting, citing Prof. J. Alex Halderman’s research and his team’s ability to hack the District of Columbia’s internet voting pilot program in a matter of hours in 2010.Experts discuss FTC investigation of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI (video)
Prof. Lu Wang appears in this CBS Detroit news segment and comments on whether it’s harmful to consumers when chat provides false information.UMich hosts third annual Juneteenth symposium
Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II, an EECS alum, is quoted regarding the importance of Juneteenth and the role his engineering training played in empowering him to effect change in his local community.Critics blast Georgia’s plan to delay software updates on its voting machines
Experts, including Prof. J. Alex Halderman, respond to Georgia’s decision to wait until after the 2024 election to update its voting machine software.Court unseals long-awaited election security reports
A report by Prof. J. Alex Halderman on the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of election machines in Georgia has been released, citing significant security flaws in the state’s voting technology.Georgia won’t update vulnerable Dominion software until after 2024 election
State officials say election machines won’t be updated until after 2024, despite warnings about security flaws in a report by CSE Prof. J. Alex Halderman released this week.Researchers at UMich find a way to reduce the energy consumed by AI
The Michigan Daily discusses Zeus, an open-source framework designed in the lab of Mosharaf Chowdhury to analyze and optimize the energy efficiency of training AIPrinceton awards five honorary degrees
Prof. Emerita Lynn Conway has been recognized by Princeton University with an honorary Doctor of Science degree, for her foundational work in VLSI, and for her work as an advocate for transgender rights.Putting a Teaspoon of Programming into Other Subjects
Historians, scientists, humanities scholars, mathematicians, and artists today use programming to advance the goals of their own disciplines, for problems other than professional software development.MIDAS hosts forum on ethics in artificial intelligence
Jenna Wiens is noted as the keynote speaker for this event, and presented on the potential dangers of AI bias in health care settings.Security concerns raised over internet voting for Michigan military spouses
Prof. J. Alex Halderman is quoted regarding security concerns related to Michigan’s proposed new system for allowing electronic ballot return for deployed military members.U-M artificial intelligence experts share ChatGPT lessons with Ann Arbor public
This article highlights an upcoming event at which participants from the AI Lab will discuss ChatGPT with the Ann Arbor public.Future is now – this revolutionary device can transform your body or a desk into a touchscreen
This article reports on SAWSense, a sensor system developed in Prof. Alanson Sample’s lab that allows for touch inputs to be made on a variety of surfaces.2023 Inductee Lynn Conway: Leading a Revolution in Microelectronics
Lynn Conway has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Conway transformed the global microelectronics industry when she co-invented VLSI, or Very Large-Scale Integration. Her revolutionary work has allowed small teams of individuals to design powerful chips.Your Next Fitness Coach Could Be a Robot
Professor Nikola Banovic is quoted on how AI-based fitness programs fail to replicate the social interactions that make training effective.Meet the brains behind the world’s first fully remote global censorship observatory
Sloan Research Fellow and Morris Wellman Faculty Development Professor Roya Ensafi has been profiled on the Sloan Foundation’s blog for her work in combatting internet censorship and surveillance.UMich Perspectives: How are we dealing with AI?
In this article, Prof. Nikola Banovic speaks with The Daily on how people connect with computers, and how they use computers to connect with each other.I Got Investigated by the Secret Service. Here’s How to Not Be Me
Prof. Roya Ensafi is quoted in this piece on Wired about the role of ISPs in government surveillance, and how useful technologies like VPNs are in safeguarding privacy.‘Meet Your Class’: UMich students launch website for incoming first-years to find roommates
Computer science undergraduate Blake Mischley and Business student Jonah Liss have launched a website to allow incoming first year students to upload introductory posts about themselves and meet new friends online. Students share Instagram posts that link to the site and allow students to connect before looking for roommates through the University Housing Portal.Learning How U.S. Consumers Perceive and Use VPNs
Prof. Roya Ensafi and Consumer Reports Security Planner Yael Grauer authored this piece on attitudes of U.S.-based users toward VPNs, and the widespread misconceptions of how they work.Advocates seek federal investigation of multistate effort to copy voting software
The Washington Post references Prof. J. Alex Halderman’s security assessment of Georgia’s ballot marking devices in an article about recent efforts to copy sensitive voting software in several states.DeepMind AI topples experts at complex game Stratego
Quoted in this article, Prof. Michael Wellman comments on the ability of recent AIs to master complex strategy games, such as Stratego and Diplomacy, and the need to move beyond recreational games to measure scientific progress on real-world challenges.‘Data-rich, resource-poor.’ Why Michigan schools can be a ‘soft target’ for ransomware attacks
Prof. Paul Grubbs discusses the ins and outs of ransomware attacks, which recently targeted South Redford School District in Michigan.Nearly every election-denying secretary of state candidate lost
In this summary article, Prof. J. Alex Halderman is quoted regarding people’s expectations around voting machines.Will Election Deniers Again Try to Access Voting Systems?
There’s no evidence that votes have been tampered with, but a case in Georgia suggests a particular potential vulnerability. Prof. J. Alex Halderman discusses the issue with The New Yorker.University of Michigan to Ramp Up AI Research Over Next 6 Years
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor will recruit and train 60 postdoctoral fellows over the next six years as part of a new global partnership that aims to accelerate the next scientific revolution by applying artificial intelligence to research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.The Vulnerabilities of our Voting Machines, and How to Secure Them
The security of voting remains a huge topic of concern. Prof. J. Alex Halderman talks with The New Yorker Radio Hour about his experience analyzing American voting machines and where the risks stand today.Are virtual private networks actually private?
A joint project with Prof. Roya Ensafi and Arizona State University works to protect internet freedom and digital security by revealing vulnerabilities in VPN technology.Apps can pose bigger security, privacy threat based on where you download them
According to a study led by PhD student Renuka Kumar, the same app can pose different different risks if you download it in, say, Tunisia rather than in Germany.‘Absolutely terrifying prospect’: How the midterms could weaken U.S. election security
Prof. J. Alex Halderman discusses the prospect of voting system audits opening key states open to attacks and hackers in Politico.Democratizing Automation: UiPath and University of Michigan Join Efforts
Prof. Xinyu Wang has a goal of building fundamental intelligent programming techniques that are useful in practice, and is supported by UiPath as he works toward his vision of democratizing automation so that more and more people around the world can automate their tedious tasks.GOP operatives’ troubling trend of copying election systems
GOP operatives have made efforts to copy sensitive voting information in a number of states, including in Michigan. Computer security experts have noted that this creates new security risks. This data would often include “object code,” or the language that allows machines to understand the underlying source code, said Prof. J. Alex Halderman, which is mostly straightforward to reverse-engineer.Computer Graphics Innovator Paul Debevec to Receive Emmy for Lifetime Achievement
The Hollywood Reporter features alum Paul Debevec, who will receive the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award during the Television Academy’s 74th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards.Alum Paul E. Debevec awarded the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award
Paul Debevec was awarded the 2022 Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award for his groundbreaking work in high dynamic range imaging, image-based lighting and photogrammetry, essential techniques used in computer graphics for VFX and Virtual Production. Debevec received UG degrees in computer engineering and math at Michigan, and his PHD in CS from UC-Berkeley.Can a Teaching Track Improve Undergraduate Education?
Dr. Andrew DeOrio, a teaching faculty in the department, is quoted in this article on the advantages of formalizing teaching tracks in university structures. DeOrio is an advocate for recognizing the teaching-focused faculty track as a career.How ‘Stop the Steal’ Captured the American Right
Prof. J. Alex Halderman is quoted in the New York Times Magazine regarding the balance between credible election security threats and misinformation.AMAISE: a machine learning approach to index-free sequence enrichment
CSE PhD student Meera Krishnamoorthy has published a paper in Communications Biology on a new ML-based approach for genomic sequence enrichment. Krishnamoorthy is advised by Prof. Jenna Wiens.Perceptron: Risky teleoperation, Rocket League simulation and zoologist multiplication
TechCrunch’s Perceptron has highlighted work by CSE graduate student Divya Ramesh and Vaishnav Kameswaran in the School of Information. They and their co-authors explored “financially stressed” peoples’ relationships with AI-powered systems in countries with weak legislation and argue that their findings illustrate the need for greater “algorithmic accountability.”No evidence of exploitation of Dominion voting machine flaws, CISA finds
The federal government has found no evidence that flaws in Dominion voting machines have ever been exploited, including in the 2020 election. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s five-page advisory is based in part on an analysis and report by Prof. J. Alex HaldermanOpinion: We’ve developed a digital education model that works
Prof. Elliot Soloway writes about the U-M Center for Digital Curricula’s Collabirty tools that enable teachers and students to interact and collaborate seamlessly. It is accompanied by free, year-long, standards-aligned curricula for K-5.Cyber agency: Voting software vulnerable in some states
The leading US cybersecurity agency released an advisory based on a report by Prof. J. Alex Halderman, indicating that electronic voting machines from a leading vendor used in at least 16 states have software vulnerabilities that leave them susceptible to hacking if unaddressed.AI models in health care are not colour blind and we should not be either
Prof. Jenna Wiens comments on a finding that AI systems can be trained to determine a person’s self-reported race based on a medical image.Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life
Alum Tony Fadell (BSE CE ’91), inventor of the Apple iPod and founder of Nest labs, writes this piece for IEEE Spectrum detailing his years pursuing the creation of a thermostat he actually likes.Don’t Call Tony Fadell an Asshole—He Prefers ‘Mission Driven’
Wired interviews alum Tony Fadell (BSE CE ’91), inventor of the Apple iPod and founder of Nest labs, about his new book “Build” that focuses on how to be an effective leader, why the metaverse is bunk, and when quitting is a virtue.The Elegant Philosophy of Ones and Zeros
A 1936 master’s thesis written by EECS alumnus Claude Shannon changed the computing world overnight. Shannon’s insight seemed to come out of nowhere, but collections from the Bentley archive show how the genius idea grew from a revamped engineering campus and one elective class.Using AI for good
Profs. Joyce Chai and Jason Corso are part of a multi-institution effort to make task automation and task learning more efficient.Dan Huttenlocher ponders our human future in an age of artificial intelligence
U-M alum and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing dean Dan Huttenlocher has been focused on bridging gaps between disciplines as the best way to address challenges and opportunities posed by rapid advancements in AI.Plot to Overturn the Election
A new PBS Frontline documentary on 2020 election misinformation features commentary by Prof. J. Alex Halderman, election security expert and author of a major report on purported 2020 election fraud in one Michigan county.LG opens AI research center in Michigan
This story reports on the opening of the LG AI Research Center, and its partnership with U-M, represents a commitment by LG to become a leader in developing advanced AI technologies.Tracked and Traced: You are the product, thanks to surveillance capitalism
Prof. Alanson Sample discusses his lab’s work on PrivacyMic, a developing audio technology that protects user privacy by operating outside the normal frequency range for human ears.New legislation could bring mobile voting to the District
Prof. J. Alex Halderman says that standards for voting should be higher – “it’s phenomenally retrograde to consider Internet voting in the present moment.”New legislation could bring mobile voting to the District
New proposed legislation could bring mobile voting to Washington DC. Prof. J. Alex Halderman comments on why we may not be ready for this.Geo-exchange system to generate renewable heating, cooling
The planned Leinweber Computer Science and Information Building will make use of a fully-renewable geo-exchange system for heating and cooling, as part of the University’s progress toward carbon neutrality.Feds oppose immediate release of voting machine report
A federal cybersecurity agency is reviewing a report under seal by Prof. J. Alex Halderman that indicates security vulnerabilities exist in voting machines used by Georgia and other states. Halderman has advocated to make his findings public in a limited and responsible way so that problems could be addressed.Sony’s new AI beats humans in Gran Turismo racing game
Sony AI America, led by CSE alumnus Peter Wurman, used 20 Playstations running continuously for 10 – 12 days to train their AI agent “from scratch to superhuman level.”Unicorn-Bound
May Mobility has become one of Ann Arbor’s most promising near-unicorns, following its recent $86M funding round.Are voting machines too vulnerable to hacking? Georgia’s having that debate
Prof. J. Alex Halderman found multiple vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to install malicious software and undermine elections in a special report on Georgia’s voting machines.Toyota AV-Shuttle Bet May Mobility Raises $83 Million
May Mobility, the self-driving shuttle startup co-founded by Prof. Edwin Olson, has raised $83 million in its largest funding round to date. May will use the money to advance its self-driving software to the point that it can remove human safety drivers from shuttles and replace them with remote supervisors who can monitor several vehicles at once.The Catch-22 of Addressing Election Security
Prof. J. Alex Halderman comments on election security vulnerabilities versus current threats to the democratic process in this article that asks the question: How do politicians contend with the weaknesses in the voting system without fueling baseless claims of election fraud?Keeping hackers out of our medical devices
As the FDA’s resident expert in medical device security, Prof. Kevin Fu oversees efforts to fortify devices that can be compromised or exploited during a security breach. He spoke with Politico about his efforts.Quantum Cyberattacks Are Coming. This Math Can Stop Them
In the future, quantum machines will “retroactively break” encryption schemes on today’s computers. Prof. Chris Peikert tells Popular Mechanics how we’ll protect our data.A New Report on VPNs Shows They’re Often a Mixed Bag for Privacy
Consumer Reports recently reviewed a variety of virtual private networks with the help of VPNalyzer, a tool developed in Prof. Roya Ensafi’s lab.2021 Precision Health Investigators Awards
Prof. Zhongming Liu (co-PI) and Jeffrey Fessler are members of a team newly funded by U-M Precision Health to investigate “Deep Learning for Prediction of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia of the Alzheimer’s Type.” Prof. Honglak Lee is part of a team funded to investigate “Rapid Intraoperative Molecular Diagnosis of Diffuse Gliomas Using Stimulated Raman Histology and Deep Neural Networks.”Computer Science was always supposed to be taught to everyone, and it wasn’t about getting a job: A historical perspective
A popular blog post by Prof. Mark Guzdial explores the historical roots of computer science education.Could Ordinary Household Objects Be Used To Spy On You?
How the physics of sound helped test the possibilities of indirect surveillance. Prof. Kevin Fu explores the risks & opportunities of side-channel surveillance tech in Science Friday.Governments are finding new ways to squash free expression online
Work by Prof. Roya Ensafi and the Censored Planet Lab has helped to identify the use of new censorship technology in Russia.Russia Is Censoring the Internet, With Coercion and Black Boxes
Work by Prof. Roya Ensafi and the Censored Planet Lab was cited in a New York Times report on the growing use of new censorship technology in Russia$25M gift to help fund computer science, information building
A $25 million gift from the Leinweber Foundation, founded by software entrepreneur Larry Leinweber, will help to bring CSE and the School of Information together under one roof for the first time.Ransomware attacks put availability of medical devices at risk: FDA cyber chief
Kevin Fu, acting director of cybersecurity at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, says that “You can’t have a safe and effective medical device if it’s unavailable” due to ransomware.Election Security Problems Still Must Be Addressed | Opinion
Prof. J. Alex Halderman co-authored an op-ed for Newsweek on how disinformation is inhibiting legitimate and necessary election security reforms.CHEPSter to CHEPSter the Computer Science Edition
Current CS student Cole interviews CSE alum Eli Sherman about internships, PhD work, and healthcare engineering.May Mobility to launch AV shuttle in Ann Arbor
May Mobility, the autonomous transportation company co-founded by Prof. Edwin Olson, is launching a free autonomous vehicle shuttle service in Ann Arbor beginning Oct. 11. The company also has autonomous shuttles operating in Grand Rapids; Arlington, Texas; Hiroshima, Japan; and Indianapolis.This magic room charges your phone as soon as you walk in
Prof. Alanson Sample discusses his new research, which created rooms with wireless electricity, enabling the use of lamps and fans and charging cells phones all without the need for power cords.Experts call for rigorous audit to protect California recall
Work by Prof. J. Alex Halderman was cited by a group of election security experts calling on California’s top election official to take an additional step to protect the upcoming gubernatorial recall.G.O.P. Election Reviews Create a New Kind of Security Threat
Election security experts, such as Prof. J. Alex Halderman, are concerned about the security risks that are being introduced as non-election officials are granted broad access to voting equipment.$2M ‘robot assistants’ project aims to reinvent construction industry
A $2 million NSF-funded project aims to enable robots to learn from human partners on construction sites, with contributions from co-PI Prof. Joyce Chai and Prof. Honglak Lee.The Role of Computer Science in Elite Higher Education: Seeing the Expert Blind Spot
A CACM blog by Prof. Mark Guzdial discussing the role of CS in preparing elite scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans
The level of public acceptance of evolution in the United States is now solidly above the halfway mark, according to a new study co-authored by Prof. Mark Ackerman based on a series of national public opinion surveys conducted over the last 35 years.This entire room has been turned into a giant wireless charger
Researchers including Prof. Alanson Sample have developed a system to safely deliver electricity over the air, a development that could potentially turn entire buildings into wireless charging zones.Experts: False claims on voting machines obscure real flaws
In an interview with the Washington Post, Prof. J. Alex Halderman reminds readers that real security flaws in voting systems do exist – even if they’ve been obscured by false claims.Computer security personnel need tools, training to assist survivors of intimate partner violence
Customer support personnel at computer security companies are not sufficiently prepared to handle cases involving intimate partner violence. U-M PhD students Yixin Zou and Allison McDonald and Prof. Florian Schaub examined where training falls short in helping IPV survivors and what can be done to address the deficits.Hacker lexicon: what is a side channel attack?
Computers constantly give off more information than you might realize—which hackers can use to pry out their secrets. Prof. Dan Genkin gives perspective to Wired.‘Move fast and break things’ won’t work for autonomous vehicles
The rush to deploy autonomous road vehicles in the United States is understandable, but it must be tempered by safety considerations. CSE Prof. John Meyer and ECE Prof. Carl Landwehr write for The Hill.Trump Says More Countries Should Ban Twitter: ‘Perhaps I Should Have Done It While I Was President’
In this article, Prof. Roya Ensafi comments on how the June 2018 repeal of net neutrality in the U.S. has set the stage for potentially blocking websites nationwide.Experimental Morpheus CPU is ‘mind-bogglingly terrible’ to crack
Cybersecurity researchers have found the Morpheous chip, designed by a U-M team lead by S. Jack Hu Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Todd Austin, to virtually eliminate whole classes of exploits.How the Ford F-150 Lightning’s Chief Engineer Linda Zhang Brought the World an Electric Pickup
TheDrive profiles Linda Zhang (BSE EE, MSE CE, MBA), who is the Chief Engineer for the Ford F-150 LightningJamaican engineering genius leads US team to make World Wide Web more global
Dr. Charles Anthony Barnett (BS CE 1982) is leading the technical team at an American satellite service company aiming to make World Wide Web more globalRansomware, other cyber threats mount as medtech industry tries to adapt
Prof. Kevin Fu is interviewed on how cyber threats to the medical technology industry, including ransomware and other malware, are growing in sophistication and potentially putting patient safety at risk.Researchers Are Trying to Create an Unhackable Computer Processor
This article highlights the secure processor design developed by a U-M research team led by S. Jack Hu Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Todd Austin. The processor constantly encrypts parts of the machine’s functions to obscure how it works, thus blocking potential hackers from being able to exploit it.Shape-shifting computer chip thwarts an army of hackers
Research led by S. Jack Hu Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Todd Austin have developed Morpheus, a secure new computer processor that recently defeated the attempts of 525 security researchers who tried to hack it.Free ‘A2GO’ autonomous shuttle service coming to Ann Arbor this fall
May Mobility, co-founded by Prof. Edwin Olson, along with U-M’s Mcity and Ann Arbor SPARK announced the launch of a free autonomous vehicle shuttle service that will begin operating in downtown Ann Arbor this October.Mythic Raises $70 Million in Series C Funding Led by BlackRock and Hewlett Packard Enterprise
AI accelerator chip start-up Mythic, founded in 2012 at U-M by EECS alumni Mike Henry and Dave Fick, has raised $70 million in Series C Funding. The company has raised over $165.2 million to-date and has offices in Redwood City, CA and Austin, TX.Putin Finds Ally in China’s TikTok in Crackdown on Critics
Russia is now pioneering a “landmark” approach to censorship that relies on both pressuring platforms to police their own content and an innovative use of technology to ensure they comply, according to Roya Ensafi, the founder of the Censored Planet lab.University of Michigan Combines Tech and Twilio to Support a Continuous Learning Environment for Thousands of Low-income Students
The University of Michigan Center for Digital Curricula, co-directed by Thurnau Prof. Elliot Soloway, uses Twilio Voice to allow students and teachers to communicate in real-time while completing assignments and to bridge the gap in distance learning and in-class learning.Did UM team build an unhackable computer chip? Nobody has beaten it
The MORPHEUS chip, designed in Prof. Todd Austin’s lab, has survived the tests of hundreds of hackers – it’s still unhackable.SambaNova Raises Eye-Popping Series D Funding
Data center AI chip and system company SambaNova has announced an enormous Series D funding round of $676 million, pushing the company’s valuation above $5 billion. SambaNova’s cofounder is alumnus Kunle Olukotun (BSE EE ’85; MSE PhD CSE ’87 ’91).Academics: Russia deployed new technology to throttle Twitter’s traffic
The Censored Planet project, from the lab of Prof. Roya Ensafi, published a study explaining some of the details about the slowdown of Twitter in Russia.Michigan expert debunks infamous report on Antrim County election as ‘meaningless’
A report released by Prof. J. Alex Halderman says the much-discussed December 2020 report by supporters of Donald Trump on election results in Antrim County “contains an extraordinary number of false, inaccurate or unsubstantiated statements.”U of Mich. computer science prof: no fraud in Antrim Co. 2020 election
A 54-page report authored by Prof. J. Alex Halderman who analyzed Antrim County’s 2020 election results, found initial mistakes were the result of human error and that certified results of the presidential contest were accurate.U-M Computer Chip MORPHEUS Defeats 500+ Hackers
MORPHEUS, a computer chip developed by Prof. Todd Austin’s lab, has defeated more than 500 hackers invited by the school to find its vulnerabilities.Building a Preeminent Research Lab in the Arab Region: The Case of QCRI
ACM look back at the founding of the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), one of three national research institutes established in 2010 with the help of Prof. Karem Sakallah.Experience as a Woman in STEM at the University of Michigan
To celebrate Women’s History Month, third year CS undergrad Maya Subramanian joined U-M’s student vlog to discuss her goals and experiences as a woman in the field.U-M Africa Week engages audience in conversations on development and growth of Africa
Valeria Bertacco, professor of computer science and engineering and vice provost for engaged learning, was one of three organizers of Africa Week, U-M’s first conference on Africa’s issues and development. She hopes Africa Week will allow students to understand opportunities to engage with global communities.Examining the intersection of natural language processing and social sciences
Prof. Rada Mihalcea joins this episode of Michigan Minds to explain her research in natural language processing, a subfield of artificial intelligence‚ and what she feels are the best ways to encourage more women and girls to pursue work in STEM-related fields.The Scramble for Post-Quantum Cryptography
The coming of quantum computers means that current encryption technology will be insufficient. Prof. Chris Peikert comments on the need for stronger post-quantum cryptography and the prospects for computing on encrypted data.Solving for Equity
Profs. Jessy Grizzle and Chad Jenkins, the director and associate director of the Robotics Institute, are developing a robotics engineering degree that launches freshmen with computational linear algebra in a projects-based course. Their goal is to increase student access, engagement, and success along with overall equity.XR internships create new reality for Ann Arbor tech ecosystem
Ann Arbor has developed a robust ecosystem for growing industries like XR. An internship program co-designed by Austin Yarger is helping connect U-M students to this ecosystem.Traveling beyond Moore’s Law – together
Researchers led by Bredt Professor of Engineering Trevor Mudge and Prof. Ron Dreslinski have partnered with ARM and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh to run DARPA’s Software Defined Hardware program.SambaNova Emerges From Stealth With Record-Breaking AI System
SambaNova, one of the AI chip startup “unicorns,” has emerged from stealth mode after three years to announce its first product, a system-level AI accelerator for hyperscale and enterprise data centers and high performance computing (HPC) applications. SambaNova’s co-founder is alumnus Kunle Olukotun (BSE EE ’85; MSE PhD CSE ’87 ’91).Northeastern Names Usama Fayyad to Lead Institute of Experiential Artificial Intelligence
Fayyad (BSE EE & CE ’84, MSE CSE ’86, MS Math ’89, PhD CSE ’91) will work with Northeastern senior leadership to create a pioneering research hub that places human skills and intelligence at the forefront of artificial intelligence development.Finding Gaps in Your Grad School Apps
CSE PhD student Wilka Carvalho made a guest appearance on the How To Do Grad School podcast with Chelsea Onyeador from MIT. The pair discuss how to navigate the maze of difficult questions facing applicants.Winner of NSA’s 8th Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Research Paper Competition
The National Security Agency’s Research Directorate selected “Spectre Attacks: Exploiting Speculative Execution” as the winner of its 8th Annual Best Cybersecurity Research Paper competition. Prof. Daniel Genkin is one of the authors.IBM fired U-M professor Lynn Conway for coming out as trans in 1968. 52 years later, the company apologized.
“The thing is, this story is not entirely about me, or even about IBM,” Conway said. “We’re the messengers. Our story is a lesson: you can never take for granted that you really know what you’re doing now and how it will affect the future. It’s a new kind of social awareness.”Can We Make Our Robots Less Biased Than We Are?
A.I. developers are committing to end the injustices in how their technology is often made and used. Prof. Chad Jenkins is one of the researchers featured in this article.52 Years Later, IBM Apologizes for Firing Transgender Woman
Lynn Conway, Professor Emerita of EECS, was one of the company’s most promising young computer engineers but after confiding to supervisors that she was transgender, they fired her.IBM Apologizes For Firing Computer Pioneer For Being Transgender…52 Years Later
IBM is apologizing to Lynn Conway, Professor Emerita of EECS, for firing her 52 years ago on account of her being transgender.Human error, Dominion voting equipment fuel false fraud claims in Michigan
“It was ultimately a human error.” J. Alex Halderman discusses claims of voting irregularities in the state of Michigan.PROGRESS Out of the Blue
Prof. Chad Jenkins was interviewed on the AI with AI podcast, discussing everything from movement primitives to AI research culture.Leading Cybersecurity Expert Applauds Michigan Election Security Measures
“Good election results take time,” says Alex Halderman, co-chair of the Michigan Election Security Advisory Commission.How Election Tech Could Create a Recount Nightmare
Most election-tech equipment is the intellectual property of the companies that make it — meaning a contested election could get even more complicated according to experts including J. Alex Halderman.Michigan elections vulnerable to hacks but not as much as others, report says
Michigan’s Election Security Advisory Commission, co-chaired by J. Alex Halderman, released a report on Thursday detailing a host of potential problems on Election Day, including cyberattacks from foreign states, software problems and power outages.How secure are Michigan elections? Quietly released report shines light
While exerts tout the security of Michigan’s elections, multiple reforms crafted by an advisory commission have not yet been fully implemented.Will Georgia’s new voting machines solve election problems — or make them worse?
Prof. J. Alex Halderman participates in a conversion about whether the latest voting technology being used in Georgia provides a stronger defense against meddling than the traditional paper ballot.US blocks Hong Kong users from some government websites
Sites hosting economic data have been inaccessible to users in the Asian financial centre for months, according to work by Prof. Roya Ensafi and her Censored Planet team.With time short, judge mulls Georgia voting system changes
After a glitch in Georgia’s voting machines, voting integrity activists including J. Alex Halderman made a request to sideline the state’s new touchscreen voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots for the November general election.The contest to protect almost everything on the internet
The world’s top cryptographers are competing to develop algorithms that can withstand attacks from an ultrafast quantum computer – and Prof. Chris Peikert made one of the top 15 contenders.Lawyers spar over Georgia voting machine glitch, planned fix
Georgia election officials say they’re implementing a software change to fix a glitch in the state’s new voting machines. But election integrity activists, including Prof. J. Alex Halderman, say the state is downplaying the problem and putting the security of the upcoming election at risk.COVID-19 app built at U-M helps businesses stay open
A COVID-19 symptom checklist web app developed by students in classes taught by Profs. Sugih Jamin and Elliot Soloway is helping more than 2,500 Michigan employers meet state requirements to screen employees before they enter the workplace each day.Is Your Vote Secure in Michigan? Cybersecurity Expert Alex Halderman is Cautiously Optimistic
The notoriously pessimistic University of Michigan computer security expert says there’s a lot of positive things happening in the stateStudy: Pa. benefits screening tool may be telling potential applicants they don’t qualify
A study by two University of Michigan researchers found errors in a Pennsylvania public benefits screening tool that could have wrongly told people they were not eligible for benefits, when in fact they were.Customizable Curricula Available from U-M Center
Prof. Elliot Soloway is interviewed on WWJ radio about the customizable digital curricula available from his Center for Digital Curricula. Over 20,000 students in Michigan are using the platform this Fall.3 Proposals to Change How We Teach Computing In Order to Reduce Inequality
Online instruction is here, whether we’re ready or not. Prof. Mark Guzdial offers three proposals for reducing inequality in computing education amid these radical changes to teaching.Humans Take a Step Closer to ‘Flying Cars’
Prof. Ella Atkins is featured by the New York Times in a piece about how close we are to a future of flying cars.Who Gets to Vote in Florida?
“If the Russians had pulled the trigger, there would have been utter chaos on Election Day.” Prof. J. Alex Halderman talks election security in The New Yorker.Relying on electronic voting machines puts us at risk, security expert says
How do we make elections secure? Try paper. Professor J. Alex Halderman, a security expert at the University of Michigan, explains why.Covid-19 Is Dividing the American Worker
Prof. Chad Jenkins talks with Wall Street Journal about the looming effects of automation in the midst of this pandemic.Before we put $100 billion into AI…
An op-ed on developing artificial intelligence to serve the common good by Chad Jenkins.Censys, a search engine for internet devices, raises $15.5M Series A
Censys, co-founded by Prof. J. Alex Halderman, completed a round of Series A funding for $15.5M. The company will use the funding to fuel their growth in revolutionizing Attack Surface Management.The Cybersecurity 202: DNC’s email voting plan limits hacking risk but can’t eliminate it
“What’s at stake here is the legitimacy of the [voting] process and for that reason security is still very important.” Prof. J. Alex Halderman talks to the Washington Post.How To Create An AI (Artificial Intelligence) Model
Prof. Jason Corso describes some key considerations that go into the design of a new AI model.Voting amidst a pandemic
J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science at the University of Michigan explains why e-voting systems are so risky when it comes to election security.Delayed Election Results Could Test Social Media Companies as Never Before
The immediate gratification American voters have enjoyed for decades will likely come to an end in 2020. That’s the diagnosis of experts and academics like Prof. J. Alex Halderman.MIT Alumni Profile: Edwin Olson ’00, MEng ’01, PhD ’08
Profile of Prof. Edwin Olson from his alma mater MIT. Olson is the founder of May Mobility, the Michigan-based startup that operates a fleet of low-speed autonomous electric vehicles in different cities around the country.Hacker Lexicon: What Is a Side Channel Attack?
Prof. Daniel Genkin helps to explain why side channel attacks continue to happen in this article. Genkin has been involved in identifying a number of flaws that have been vulnerable to side channel attacks, enabling attacks such as the Meltdown, Spectre, RAMBleed, and Foreshadow attacks.Delaware Quietly Fielded An Online Voting System, But Now Is Backing Away
Delaware briefly deployed a controversial internet voting system recently but scrapped it amid concerns about security and public confidence, comments from Prof. J. Alex Halderman.A Q&A with David Fouhey
Prof. David Fouhey is interviewed about his experiences as an Assistant Professor in CVPR Daily, which is published in conjunction with the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference.Game Playing meets Game Theory with Professor Michael Wellman
Lynn A. Conway Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Michael Wellman is interviewed on the progress AI is making due to combining deep reinforcement learning with game-theoretic modeling.The Cybersecurity 202: Georgia’s primary debacle should sound alarm bells for November
“The wide-scale problems in Georgia are exactly what experts have been fearing.” Prof. J. Alex Halderman raises alarm about November elections based on the experience in Georgia’s primary.Online Voting System Used in Florida and Elsewhere Has Severe Security Flaws, Researchers Find
Significant problems with Democracy Live’s OmniBallot internet voting program could result in doctored ballots as voters gear up for election season in the era of Covid-19The Cybersecurity 202: DARPA wants hackers to try to crack its new generation of super-secure hardware
Prof. J. Alex Halderman offered recommendations for how election officials can use online voting platform OmniBallot’s technology while mitigating risk.Amid Pandemic and Upheaval, New Cyberthreats to the Presidential Election
Fear of the coronavirus is speeding up efforts to allow voting from home, but some of them pose security risks. A new study by Prof. J. Alex Halderman identifies risks to election integrity and voter privacy on the OmniBallot platform, currently in use for the Delaware primaries and in other parts of the country.5 Women You Should Know Working in AI
Rada Mihalcea, the Janice M. Jenkins Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of the U-M AI Lab, is featured for her work in computational sociolinguistics.Probing tech’s soft underbelly
Prof. Kevin Fu’s lab has demonstrated weaknesses in the electronic devices and sensors that we rely upon to illustrate the need for improvements in cybersecurity. He is profiled in this article.HBO Documentary Shows The Value Of Cybersecurity In Election Security
J. Alex Halderman examines the threats associated with electronic voting machines.Nvidia makes its GPU-powered genome sequencing tool available free to those studying COVID-19
Founded by Prof. Scott Mahlke and his former students Mehrzad Samadi and Ankit Sethia, Parabricks was acquired by Nvidia in December 2019. Parabricks accelerates genomic analysis.Why I Chose to Attend Michigan Engineering
Allison Kench, sophomore studying CS, reflects on what drove her decision to attend the University of Michigan.Duo Security founder donates $1M to Washtenaw County small business fund
EECS alum Dug Song, co-founder of Duo Security, has gifted $1M to an emergency fund for Washtenaw County small businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak.Cybersecurity Experts Say Hacking Risk Is High for Mobile Voting
J. Alex Halderman talks with Bloomberg about mobile voting systems, saying they’re still prone to tampering and manipulation.‘Alexa, let’s chat!’: U-M among 10 student teams worldwide advancing conversational AI
The U-M Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge team have made it to the semi-finals.Buggy Iowa Caucus App Is Buggy, Security Experts Say
“It’s total amateur hour,” Prof. J. Alex Halderman says of a vulnerable app used in the Iowa Caucuses.
Here’s why NSA rushed to expose a dangerous computer bug
Hackers could have used vulnerabilities in the IowaReporterApp to intercept or even change passwords, vote totals, and other sensitive information, with commentary from Prof. J. Alex Halderman.
How Multiple System Failures Produced Debacle in Iowa Caucus
Prof. J. Alex Halderman spoke about how the spectacle in the Iowa Caucuses should serve as a cautionary tale about electronic and internet voting.
App Used to Tabulate Votes Is Said to Have Been Inadequately Tested
Prof. J. Alex Halderman provides commentary on the vulnerabilities of app used in the Iowa Caucuses.
Puerto Rico’s Internet Voting Plan Threatens Election Security: ACLU
Puerto Ricans could be casting their ballots online only in the next eight years, and Prof. J. Alex Halderman provides criticism.
Intel Is Patching the Patch for the Patch for Its ‘Zombieload’ Flaw
A research team from Michigan and University of Adelaide has identified a new microarchitectural attack that is capable of bypassing the buffer overwrite countermeasures in INtel’s flagship processors.University professors discuss artificial intelligence’s influence on the financial world
Professors Michael Wellman and Rada Mihalcea discuss the role of artificial intelligence in finance as part of the Friday Night AI series at the Ann Arbor Downtown Library.ROBOTS: Time to think about laws?
Prof. Ben Kuipers discusses a world where robots become more important to our everyday lives.‘Chaos Is the Point’: Russian Hackers and Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020
While American election defenses have improved since 2016, many of the vulnerabilities exploited four years ago remain. Comments by Prof. J. Alex Halderman.
Research undercuts arguments from ballot-marking device advocates
Ballot-marking devices are still vulnerable to hacks, according to a study from EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman.
Voting machines touted as secure option are actually vulnerable to hacking
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman’s latest study shows that hybrid voting machines are still vulnerable to hacks.Voters fail mock election, exposing vulnerability to hackers
The latest study from EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman shows vulnerabilities in ballot-marking devices.Breaking Into a Smart Home With A Laser – Smarter Every Day 229
Graduate student Ben Cyr demonstrates how his lab was able to hack into smart speakers with a laser.
Scholar Stories: Gu Doing What She Loves at Michigan — Dance, Computer Science
Allison Gu keeps busy: a senior in CS with an entrepreneurship minor, she’s also tri-captain of the U-M Dance Team.
Toyota leads $50 million investment in autonomous shuttle startup May Mobility
The company was co-founded by Prof. Ed Olson, and specializes in autonomous shuttles.‘U’ researchers find way to hack into virtual assistants with lasers
Researchers including Profs. Kevin Fu and Daniel Genkin were able to take control of virtual assistants using only light.How UM degrees propelled careers in T-shirts, robots and photo archives
MLive profiles the Ann Arbor T-shirt Company, co-founded by alums Jerry Kozak (Business) and Ricky Winowiecki (Computer Engineering).Expensive, Glitchy Voting Machines Expose 2020 Hacking Risks
Paper ballots may be safer and cheaper, but local officials swoon at digital equipment. Remarks from J. Alex Halderman.
Study: Russia’s web-censoring tool sets pace for imitators
New research by Prof. Roya Ensafi sheds light on the implications of this technology.The smart speaker in your home may not be as secure as you think
Researchers, including EECS-CSE associate professor Kevin Fu, have discovered an exploit that made home assistants vulnerable to lasers.
Hackers can use lasers to ‘speak’ to your Amazon Echo or Google Home
Researchers, including EECS-CSE associate professor Kevin Fu, have discovered an exploit that makes home assistants vulnerable to laser attacks.
With a laser, researchers say they can hack Alexa, Google Home or Siri
EECS-CSE associate professor Kevin Fu’s research has found a vulnerability in home assistants, reports the New York Times.
Siri, Alexa, and Google Home can be controlled with lasers, new research shows
MEMS mics respond to light as if it were sound, discovered by a team including Profs. Kevin Fu and Dan GenkinFive Components Of Autonomous Car Security
Prof. Morley Mao’s research group released the first paper on practical attacks against a LiDAR system.The Market for Voting Machines Is Broken. This Company Has Thrived in It.
This article highlights concerns about voting machines made by ES&S, the nation’s largest supplier of voting technology, and the tactics used by the company to continue its dominance. Prof. J. Alex Halderman is quoted on how the company’s tactics haver slowed progress toward secure elections.Jana Pavlasek – PhD Student in Robotics
PhD student in Prof. Chad Jenkins’ lab is profiled.If We Want Women to Persist in Computing, Teach Them Programming – At Any Age
Prof. Mark Guzdial writes about the need for early education if retention of women in CS is a goal.University Professors talk using AI technology for bipolar disorder
Two professors involved in the intersection of artificial intelligence and mental health shared their work Friday evening at the Ann Arbor District Library in partnership with the University of Michigan’s AI Laboratory.Interspeech 2019 — Machine Learning-enabled Creativity and Innovation In Speech Tech
Coverage of Interspeech 2019, including Prof. Emily Mower Provost’s research on automatically detecting suicidal ideation from natural phone conversations.11 unexpected ways universities are using the Microsoft HoloLens
Dr. Dave Chesney and his students have found medical applications for the HoloLens, including providing realtime remote emergency care.
U-M experts to weigh in on artificial intelligence, mental health in Ann Arbor Sept. 27
Event to take place at Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown branch
In an era of distractions, Microsoft wants AI to be your coworker
The company is aiming to adapt its productivity suite to a short-attention-span world, with remarks by Prof. Walter Lasecki
Trump’s Plan to Stop Violence Via Smartphone Tracking Isn’t Just a Massive Privacy Violation
Prof. Emily Mower Provost spoke with Slate about the new HARPA proposal. She and her colleagues were skeptical.
Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang – 40 Under 40
Profs. Lingjia Tang and Jason Mars co-founded Clinc AI, developing personal assistants for a variety of applications.
Yes, tech companies may listen when you talk to your virtual assistant. Here’s why that’s not likely to stop
Prof. Jason Mars weighs in.
Yes, tech companies may listen when you talk to your virtual assistant. Here’s why that’s not likely to stop
EECS-CSE professor Florian Schaub explains privacy concerns that stem from assistants like Alexa.
How to Defraud Democracy
Prof. J. Alex Halderman writes a worst-case cyberwarfare scenario for the 2020 American presidential election.
Researchers wrote an algorithm that can undetectably change scanned ballot images
Digital images of scanned-in paper ballots can be easily modified to change the results of an election, according to research published by Prof. J. Alex Halderman.
Michigan co-launches competition to help build the next generation of AI-driven dialog systems
IBM Research AI and the University of Michigan are spearheading the development of algorithms that can learn goal-oriented dialog interactions effectively from human-to-human chatlogs by organizing a public competition to inspire and evaluate novel approaches that will lead to the next generation of AI-driven dialog systems.
Overcoming Challenges in Building Enterprise AI Assistants
U-M researchers including Prof. Walter Lasecki, postdoc Jonathan Kummerfeld, and PhD student Sai Gouravajhala partnered with IBM research to address one of the main challenges in existing state-of-the-art AI assistants. Their paper works to disentangle conversations that are mixed together in a single stream of messages.
To foil hackers, this chip can change its code in the blink of an eye
EECS-CSE professor Todd Austin explains how Morpheus’ rapid churning can thwart potential hackers.
Harvard’s Tiny, Solar-Powered Flying Robot
EECS-CSE assistant professor Shai Revzen shares his thoughts on Harvard’s flying robot and predicts the future of micro-flying air vehicles.
Hold ’Em or fold ’em? This A.I. bluffs with the best
Michael Wellman, the Lynn A Conway Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, explains how AI-playing Texas Hold ‘Em could drive cybersecurity advancements.
Elizabeth Warren just released a plan to protect American elections
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman explains what it would take to protect elections in the United States.
GitHub Releases New Tools to Report Vulnerabilities
The new features came out the same day as a study by Prof. Atul Prakash that found many open-source projects lack a clear way to report security problems.
Analog AI Accelerator Startup Raises $30m
AI accelerator chip start-up Mythic, founded in 2012 at U-M by EECS alumnus Mike Henry and Dave Fick, has raised $30 million in a B1 funding round.
Google Stadia has kicked off a new age of gaming data harvesting
John L Tishman Professor of Engineering John Laird tells Wired computer games are a valuable tool for analyzing human behavior and decision-making skills.
Privacy policies are too complicated to understand, new analysis confirms
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Florian Schaub explains how many privacy policies are unfair to consumers.
Researchers use Rowhammer bit flips to steal 2048-bit crypto key
RAMBleed side-channel attack, discovered in part by Michigan researchers, works even when DRAM is protected by error-correcting code.Researchers use Rowhammer bit flips to steal 2048-bit crypto key
Prof. Daniel Genkin’s group contributed to the discovery of a new side-channel attack targeting a computer’s memory.Clinc raises over $50 million to bring conversational AI to cars, banks, and kiosks
Clinc, a four-year-old AI startup based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announced that it’s secured $52 million in series B financing
New speculative execution bug leaks data from Intel chips’ internal buffers
Intel-specific vulnerability was found by researchers including Prof. Daniel Genkin’s group, calling their discovery of the attack Fallout.Voting tech creates growing concern for local officials
EECS-CSE graduate student instructor Matt Bernhard explains the risks of not addressing voting security concerns.
Top universities in U.S. targeted by Chinese hackers
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer and Clinical Professor of EEC-CSE Ravi Pendse explains the unique cybersecurity risks universities face, Inside Higher Ed reports.
As 2020 nears, pressure grows to replace voting machines
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman stresses the importance of the federal government funding new technologies to improve the security of U.S. elections, as reported by New York Times.
Are our voting systems secure?
Diane Rehm interviewed EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman to discuss election security risks ahead of 2020 presidential primaries.
What the U.S. can learn about electronic voting from this tiny Eastern European nation
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses the risks of online voting in Estonia with Time Magazine.
Ann Arbor’s May Mobility raises $22 million to deploy driverless shuttles across US
May Mobility secures $22 million investment amid expansion
Can ‘air traffic control’ make self-driving cars cheap and safe?
EECS-CSE assistant professor Walter Lasecki explains how new research can help driverless vehicles make decisions during times of uncertainty.
Self-driving cars could deploy sooner using ‘air traffic control’ technique, U-M researchers say
EECS-CSE assistant professor Walter Lasecki explains how new research will allow driverless vehicles to make decisions during times of uncertainty.
The first driverless spin
EECS-CSE Associate Professor Matthew Johnson-Roberson discusses on-going driverless vehicle research and testing going on around the country.
Research team investigating Internet censorship with tracking system
EECS-CSE research assistant professor Roya Ensafi explains how Censored Planet monitors censorship online.
A poker-playing robot goes to work for the Pentagon
Michael Wellman, the Lynn A Conway Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, discusses how AI might help in military decision-making with Wired.
The elite intel team still fighting Meltdown and Spectre
Self-driving cars keep tapping the brakes
Matthew Johnson-Roberson, an EECS-CSE and NAME associate professor and co-director of the University of Michigan’s Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles, discusses the growing pains of self-driving vehicles with Bloomberg.
Parabricks finds a niche to target its computing power
University of Michigan spinoff company Parabricks is featured in Crain’s Detroit Business.
Online censorship in Saudi Arabia soared after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder
Censored Planet, an internet censorship project lead by EECS-CSE research assistant professor Roya Ensafi, detected a sharp uptick in censorship following the killing of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi.
The Malware of the Future Will Have AI Superpowers
Research delving into neural network vulnerabilities done in part by EECS-CSE professor Atul Prakash and U-M graduate students is discussed in Gizmodo.
People Who Buy Smart Speakers Have Given Up on Privacy, Researchers Find
A U-M study that included EECS-CSE assistant professor Florian Schaub looked at smart home devices like Alexa and users opinion of privacy after owning one.
A moral code for computer scientists
In an interview with Stateside, EECS-CSE Professor H. V. Jagadish says that businesses should do more to incorporate data ethics into their practices.
This is the most important moral question about self-driving cars
EECS-CSE professor Benjamin Kuipers discusses self-driving cars’ decision-making process with Vox.
J. Alex Halderman on Election Systems and Vulnerabilities
Alex Halderman discusses election systems and vulnerabilities ahead of midterm elections with C-Span.
Don’t kid yourself, U.S. enemies are trying to hack our elections
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses election hacking and vulnerabilities ahead of midterms.
Parabricks finds a niche to target its computing power
EECS-CSE professor Scott Mahlke and U-M spin-off Parabricks are featured.
The internet security company Dug Song is betting on
Internet security company Censys is detailed by Crain’s Detroit Business.
A look at the election security charges in Georgia’s governor’s race
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses election vulnerabilities ahead of the midterms with PBS.
How to hack an election
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses voting machine vulnerabilities ahead of midterm elections.
Here’s how an AI lie detector can tell when you’re fibbing
EECS-CSE professor Rada Mihalcea discusses her research and how they trained an algorithm to detect lies.
Should You Be Afraid of Election Hacking? Here’s What Experts Say
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses election security ahead of midterms.
The midterms are already hacked. You just don’t know it yet.
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman and grad student Matt Bernhard discuss election security risks with Vox.
Self-driving cars will have to decide who should live and who should die. Here’s who humans would kill.
EECS-CSE professor Benjamin Kuipers discusses a new study that delves into the decisions automated cars could make in the future.
The campaign for mobile-phone voting is getting a midterm test
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses election security ahead of midterms.
How hackable are American voting machines? It depends who you ask
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses voting machine vulnerabilities ahead of the midterm elections.
Facebook hack: What to do if you’re affected
EECS-CSE professor Kevin Fu suggests security measures Facebook users should implement after the latest hack.
Stateside: Wisconsin’s suspect water diversion, UM orchestra gives sci-fi film a live soundtrack
Alec Gallimore, Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, talks about the twin roles that music and science play in Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The film was shown with accompanying live orchestra and chorus at Hill Auditorium Friday, September 21.
How to hack an election—and what states should do to prevent fake votes
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman presented his election hacking findings at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference.
Judge weighs whether Georgia must switch to paper ballots
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman says election meddling has gone from an internal interference to interference from outside governments; particularly Russia.
Is Trump taking on Russia? President authorizes sanctions on countries that interfere in elections
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman says if Russia plans to interfere in U.S. midterms, they’re probably already in our election systems.
To cripple AI, hackers are turning data against itself
EECS-CSE researcher Kevin Eykholt discusses machine learning with Wired.
Cuba’s “sonic attack” on the U.S. Embassy could have been merely sounds emitted by a listening device
EECS-CSE professor Kevin Fu’s research done in collaboration with Zhejiang University researchers is referenced in Scientific American.
Security upgrades are too little, too late for 2018 midterms, and race is already on for 2020, experts say
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman discusses election security with Newsweek.
New system can detect fake news better than humans
EECS-CSE professor Rada Mihalcea and her fake news detector research are highlighted in New Indian Express.
Algorithm beats humans for sniffing out fake news
Futurity shares the fake news detector research story done in collaboration with Electrical Engineering and Computer Science professor Rada Mihalcea.
This fake news detection algorithm outperforms humans
The Next Web delves into the fake news detector research done in collaboration with Electrical Engineering and Computer Science professor Rada Mihalcea.
Researchers claim new algorithm beats humans at spotting fake news
Research led by EECS-CSE Rada Mihalcea highlights a new method for detecting fake news.
Fake news detector algorithm works better than a human
University of Michigan develops fake news detector to fight misinformation
Why election security experts really like paper records
EECS-CSE professor Alex Halderman talks election security with Marketplace Tech host host Tracey Samuelson.
Microsoft: Here’s how to limit ‘Foreshadow’ attack impact
Your PC might need an update to fight ‘Foreshadow’
‘Foreshadow’ attack affects Intel chips
EECS-CSE professor Thomas Wenisch explains how Foreshadow was discovered and the implications of the security risk.
Three more data-leaking security holes found in Intel chips as designers swap security for speed
Spectre-like flaw undermines intel processors’ most secure element
University of Michigan professors are quoted in Wired.
Sounding the alarm on the dangers of electronic voting
EECS-CSE professor J. Alex Halderman discusses electronic voting and hacking vulnerabilities with Bloomberg News.
People are bad at spotting fake news. Can computer programs do better?
EECS-CSE professor Verónica Pérez-Rosas and colleagues studied real and fake news with the hopes of building programs that can spot it more effectively.
Drone dreams engineered into reality
AERO and EECS professor Ella Atkins discusses the benefits of U-M’s M-Air facility in North Campus.
Net Neutrality is officially dead. Here’s how the changes could affect you, according to experts
Florian Schaub, assistant EECS professor, is quoted.
From accident prevention to bike parking, Ann Arbor’s 100 mobility companies cover plenty of ground
Read about the Jason Corso’s company Voxel51, Ed Olson’s company May Mobility, alumnus Ansgar Strother’s company Movatic, and many more.
Our democracy is broken. Why can’t technology fix it?
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, proved that voting software was vulnerable to security threats.
Duo Security: Upstarts
A company founded by two CSE alumni and headquartered in Ann Arbor recently sold for $2.35 billion. (Yes, billion.) What did they do right?
Self-driving car industry confronts trust issues after Uber crash
Matthew Johnson-Roberson, assistant EECS professor, is quoted.
The self-driving Uber in fatal crash didn’t have a vision problem
Matthew Johnson-Roberson, assistant EECS professor, is quoted.
How May Mobility is spearheading autonomous driving in the form of shuttle services
Edwin Olson, associate EECS professor, is the CEO of May Mobility.
Study: Malfunctioning surveillance gear, not sonic weapons, could explain Cuba embassy ‘attack’
Kevin Fu, EECS assistant professor, believes that the sounds could have been caused by improperly placed Cuban spy gear.
UM prof floats new Cuban sonic attack theory
Kevin Fu, EECS assistant professor, does research on the use of ultrasonic waves to interfere with computer devices.
BMW, Toyota back a driverless startup that wants to start small
Edwin Olson, associate EECS professor, is the CEO of May Mobility.
BMW and Toyota are investing in a start-up that makes self-driving shuttles
Edwin Olson, EECS associate professor, is May Mobility’s founder and CEO.
How artificial intelligence is going to affect the financial industry in 2018
Jason Mars, assistant EECS professor and CEO of Clinc, has developed a conversational AI platform for financial institutions.
Pacemakers, defibrillators are potentially hackable
Kevin Fu, Associate EECS professor, is quoted.
SRC’s new R&D centers
The new $32 million center will develop new ideas in computing frontiers, such as autonomous control, robotics and machine-learning. Semiconductor Engineering reports.
Could algorithmic accelerators spur a hardware startup revival?
Valeria Bertacco, EECS professor, directs the ADA center. TheNextPlatform reports.
DARPA funds six centers working on computer design alternatives
Valeria Bertacco, EECS professor, leads the project. TechRepublic reports.
May Mobility steers to market with new tech licenses, plans to double workforce
Edwin Olson, May Mobility’s founder and CEO, is an associate professor of computer science and engineering.
6 months in business, autonomous vehicles on the road: Meet Ann Arbor’s May Mobility
Edwin Olson, May Mobility’s founder and CEO, is an associate professor of computer science and engineering. Benzinga reports.
May Mobility is a self-driving startup with a decade of experience
Edwin Olson, May Mobility’s founder and CEO, is an associate professor of computer science and engineering.
Bedrock to test May Mobility autonomous shuttle this week
Edwin Olson, May Mobility’s founder and CEO, is an associate professor of computer science and engineering.
May Mobility steers itself to $11.6M
Edwin Olson, May Mobility’s founder and CEO, is an associate professor of computer science and engineering. Global University Venturing reports.
Ask AI: How not to kill online conversations
Qiaozhu Mei, EECS professor, and colleagues trained a machine-learning program on about 63,000 Reddit threads to learn what dialog-ending responses look like.
U of M team developing ‘unhackable’ computer
Todd Austin, CSE professor, led the research.
How to create the unhackable computer
Todd Austin, CSE professor, led the research. Healthcare News Analytics reports.
DARPA takes chip route to ‘unhackable’ computers
Todd Austin, CSE professor, led the research.
A new type of computer could render many software hacks obsolete
Todd Austin, CSE professor, led the research.
US military backs project to create unhackable ‘Morpheus’ computer that can thwart hackers ‘like a Rubik’s cube’
Todd Austin, CSE professor, led the research.
DARPA backs development of “unhackable” Morpheus computer system
Todd Austin, EECS professor, lead the research. New Atlas reports.
Too late to upgrade election defenses?
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, is quoted.
Local experts weigh in on net neutrality as FCC considers new regulations
Harsha Madhyastha, EECS associate professor, is quoted.
The time to hack-proof the 2018 election is expiring — and Congress is way behind
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, is quoted.
Ann Arbor cements its status as a tech hub to watch with first unicorn
Dug Song, Michigan Engineering alum, is CEO and co-founder of Duo Security, an Ann Arbor-based startup.
Tony Fadell’s next act? Taking on Silicon Valley—from Paris
Alumni Tony Fadell (BSE CE 1991) searches for investments with his venture firm Future Shape while he continues to build roots in Paris.
VAuth tech feels your voice in your skin
Kang Shin, EECS professor, has developed a wearable device that can take the form of a necklace, ear buds or a small attachment to eyeglasses. New Atlas reports.
U-M to study flexible STEM classrooms
NSF funding will help EECS associate professor Cindy Finelli and AERO research fellow Aaron Johnson continue their research.
Phone browsing could become faster, may use less data with smart code
Harsha Madhyastha, EECS assistant professor, is one of Vroom’s developers.
Smart code helps your phone browse the web twice as quickly
U-M researchers have found a way to boost performance without security compromises.
Many county election officials still lack cybersecurity training
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, is quoted.
Why India needs a paper trail for free and fair elections
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, led a group of scientists in hacking an electronic voting machine to reveal vulnerabilities.
Our voting system is hackable by foreign powers
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, says that he and his students could have changed the results of the November election.
Professor who urged an election recount thinks Trump won, but voting integrity still concerns him
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, continues to seek data from the states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — that could help him determine if anything improper affected the election results. Story in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Clinc raises venture capital round of $6.3 million
Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang, EECS research professors, co-founded Clinc. The company whose open-source intelligent assistant and machine learning research platform is involved in research programs with Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and the National Science Foundation.
Why some apps use fake progress bars
Eytan Adar, EECS professor, describes this “benevolent deception” used by sites and apps. In a paper he published in 2013 with a pair of Microsoft researchers, Adar described a wide range of design decisions that trick their users—but end up leaving them better off.
Not the time to make voting less secure
J. Alex Halderman, EECS professor, and other computer scientists have demonstrated repeatedly that voting machines are susceptible to hacking. He has also expressed doubt in the security of elections.
How powerful AI technology can lead to unforeseen disasters
Benjamin Kuipers, EECS professor, explains that although humans typically program AI-powered robots to accomplish a particular goal, these robots will typically make decisions on their own to reach the goal.
Johnson: Michigan may boost post-election audits
Alex Halderman, EECS professor, said routine audits of the state’s paper ballots would help ensure the results are accurate and safe from hackers.
Five things that got broken at the oddest hacking event in the world
J Alex Halderman, EECS professor, and Matt Bernhard, EECS graduate student, discuss attempts to prove that the U.S. election wasn’t hacked.
Vesper grabs $15M to build a durable low-power mic that listens forever
Vesper’s technology, which emerged in part from U-M, is constantly listening, but it is doing so with an incredibly low-power draw as it seeks out the frequencies characteristic of a human voice.
U-M researchers create helpful tool for Flint residents during ongoing water crisis
University of Michigan researchers have developed a new app aimed at helping Flint residents during the ongoing water crisis in the city.
Blaming Russia to overturn the election
Exhibit A in Stein’s petition is an affidavit from Professor J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who alleges that Russia hacked the election.
Trump allowed to join fight against Pennsylvania recount
According to an affidavit in the earlier state case filed by J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at U-M, hackers could have easily infected Pennsylvania’s voting machines with malware designed to lay dormant for weeks.
Tech advances leave society open to mass-murdering computer geeks
Dr. Kevin Fu, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, said hackers could target multiple hospitals and cause a “massive, nation-wide healthcare outage.”
GOP files federal appeal but Mich. recount continues
Alex Halderman, a computer science professor from the University of Michigan explains how a Michigan recount filed by Jill Stein’s campaign could reveal tampering with voting machines.
Russia weaponized social media in U.S. election, FireEye Says
Alex Halderman, a professor of Computer Science at U-M, said hackers could have infected Pennsylvania’s voting machines with malware designed to lay dormant for weeks, pop up on Election Day and then erase itself without a trace.
Vote recount push advances, but reversing Trump’s win is unlikely
The Stein campaign is seeking to answer the question of whether the vote was hacked by introducing malicious software into voting machines. The possibility was raised by J. Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at U-M.
The election probably wasn’t hacked. But Clinton should request recounts just in case.
“Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not,” Halderman writes. “I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked.”
Alex Halderman: we will never know if the Wisconsin vote was hacked unless we check now
Alex Halderman, professor of Computer Science at UM has clarified his earlier remarks about the integrity of the Wisconsin election: in a nutshell: voting machine security sucks, hackers played an unprecedented role in this election.
Hacked or not, audit this election (And all future ones)
On Wednesday, University of Michigan computer security researcher Alex Halderman published a blog post arguing that Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania should perform recounts due to risks that the election was hacked.
Trump election: Activists call for recount in battleground states
According to a CNN report, a group of scientists including J Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, has privately told the Clinton campaign it believes there was a “questionable trend”.
Want to know if the election was hacked? Look at the ballots
UM Computer Science Professor Alex Halderman: a skilled attacker’s work might leave no visible signs–though the country might be surprised when results in several close states were off from pre-election polls.
Vulnerable connected devices a matter of ‘homeland security’
“In the short term, consumers are pretty much up a creek without a paddle,” says Kevin Fu, associate professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the University of Michigan.
Regulate cybersecurity or expect a disaster, experts warn Congress
“I fear for the day every hospital system is down,” Kevin Fu, who teaches computer security at the University of Michigan, told the hearing. “This will require some kind of governmental mandate.”
How you speak to Siri & Alexa matters more than you think — here’s why
“If we want the computers to behave differently, we have to actually pay attention to how we build them so we don’t just create mirrors of what society does,” says Rada Milhacea, a professor of computer science at U-M.
Evolving technologies pose challenge for medical device security
“A Brief Chronology of Medical Device Security” is the result of THaW, which is funded by the NSF. A.J. Burns, professor at UT–Tyler, and P. Honeyman, research professor of CS at U-M, collaborated on the article.
How safe is your smart home?
Atul Prakash is a computer science professor at the University of Michigan. He specializes in computer security. “I would be cautious, overall,” Prakash advises. “The technology is relatively new.
The network standard used in cars is wide open to attack
According to research presented last month at the ACM Conference, courtesy of computer scientists at U-M, the (CAN) protocol implemented by in-vehicle networks has a new and potentially quite dangerous vulnerability.
A lot of voting machines are broken across America (but it’s totally normal)
And this year is no different, as voting machines have always been vulnerable, said Matt Bernhard, computer science Ph.D. student at U-M and an expert on the security of electoral systems.
US election: Experts keep watch over ‘hack states’
“Unless the election is extraordinarily close, it is unlikely that an attack will result in the wrong candidate getting elected,” suggest Matt Bernhard and Professor J Alex Halderman, security experts from U-M.
The security challenges of online voting have not gone away
Matthew Bernhard, second-year computer science Ph.D student at U-M, and J. Alex Halderman, director of U-M’s Center for Computer Security and Society, emphasize online voting’s longstanding security challenges and setbacks.
Forget rigged polls: Internet voting is the real election threat
It was the office of Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at U-M. The hackers were graduate students, proving a point about Washington, D.C.’s fledgling voting system: that internet voting is vulnerable.
This is why we still can’t vote online
J. Alex Halderman, professor of CS at U-M, welcomed the opportunity to try to legally break into government software with his students. Within 36 hours, they found a tiny error that gave them full control of the system.
Notion raises $9.5M for a smarter email app, now live on mobile and soon, Alexa
“We have focused on building a great engineering team and also tapped the resources in our network, like U-M’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, and Computer Science professor Jason Mars as an advisor.”
Experts: State should audit election results
“It should be done routinely in order to provide a strong degree of confidence,” said U-M cyber-security expert Alex Halderman. “That’s an opportunity for Michigan to improve its election procedures. You should audit every election.”
Why can’t we vote online?
During the pilot, folks were invited to try and hack the system. At U-M, Professor J. Alex Halderman and his students took up the challenge. It took them about 36 hours to change votes.
U-M data science projects explore connection between student achievement, well-being
A project led by Prof. Rada Mihalcea seeks to uncover connections between students’ personal attributes such as values, beliefs, interests, behaviors and backgrounds and their success in school or overall sense of well-being.Security risks in the age of smart homes
Smart homes, an aspect of the Internet of Things, offer the promise of improved energy efficiency and control over home security. But there are also security risks. Smart home systems can leave owners vulnerable to serious threats, such as arson, blackmail, theft and extortion.University of Michigan joint institute gets $10M gift
John Wu, EECS alum, and his wife, Jane Sun, have given U-M’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute is getting a $10 million donation.