David Choffnes, PhD (Distributed Systems, Operating Systems, Networking, 3G, Mobile Wireless Ad-hoc Networks)

Research Interests

My research is primarily in the areas of distributed systems and networking, with a recent focus on mobile systems. Much of my work entails crowdsourcing measurement and performance evaluation of Internet systems by deploying software to users at the scale of tens or hundreds of thousands of users. To date, more than 1 million users have installed software produced from my research and more than 15 research groups worldwide have integrated my datasets into their research projects.

Active projects

Meddle: Improving transparency and control in mobile networks.
Improving Internet Reliability: Diagnosis and remediation for Internet paths.

Selected Publications (full list)

Improving Internet Availability with LIFEGUARD, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2012, August 2012. (PDF Format)

Crowdsourcing Service-Level Network Event Detection, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2010, August 2010. (Details and PDF)

Taming the Torrent: A practical approach to reducing cross-ISP traffic in P2P systems, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2008, August 2008. (Details and PDF)

Current

I am currently a postdoctoral research associate in Tom Anderson's group at the University of Washington. This work has been generously funded by the CI Fellows program. I will be joining Northeastern University as an assistant professor in the fall of 2013.

News

Starting in the Fall of 2013, I will be an assistant professor at Northeastern University!
I'm happy to announce that my coauthors and I will have 2 papers in SIGCOMM 2013!
One paper is about identifying the origins of BGP path changes -- with Umar Javed, Italo Cunha, Ethan Katz-Bassett, Arvind Krishnamurthy and Tom Anderson.
The other is about an efficient anonymity network that is resilient to traffic analysis -- with Stevens Le Blond, Wenxuan Zhou, Hitesh Ballani, Peter Druschel and Paul Francis.
Congrats to everyone involved!
Ethan Katz-Bassett and I were awarded an M-Lab Network Research Grant for investigating the origins of the mobile Internet performance. Thanks M-Lab!
I'll be a poster/demo chair for SIGCOMM 2014 in Chicago!
I'll be serving on the TPC for the CoNEXT '13 Student Workshop. This is a great venue for early feedback (see below).
My fantastic collaborator, Ashwin Rao, was awarded one of 8 best paper awards at the CoNEXT '12 Student Workshop for Meddle: Middleboxes for Increased Transparency and Control of Mobile Traffic!
Older news...

Background

I earned my PhD in Computer Science from Northwestern University in June, 2010, where I was awarded two Cabell Fellowships and 2009/2010 Outstanding Dissertation in EECS. Prior to that, I graduated from Amherst College, magna cum laude, in 2002 with a double-major in Physics and French. Since the job market for francophone physicists dried up, I was left with no choice but to pursue a career in the textbook-authorship business with Deitel & Associates. In two years, I worked on three books, two of which I coauthored. After that, I decided it was time for me to stop writing about others' work and start making my own to write about. Fortunately, Fabián saw fit to entertain this notion, and the rest is history.

Cetera

For those who don't know me, the following passage has become a theme that runs through my life. In short, I "push the rock," just like Sisyphus from Greek mythology. But Camus tells it better:

As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

-- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

		David Choffnes Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, starting Fall 2013 Current: Postdoctoral Research Associate Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering University of Washington Office: 3-344 ~ Home ~
Home Research Statement CV Software Recreation		Research Interests My research is primarily in the areas of distributed systems and networking, with a recent focus on mobile systems. Much of my work entails crowdsourcing measurement and performance evaluation of Internet systems by deploying software to users at the scale of tens or hundreds of thousands of users. To date, more than 1 million users have installed software produced from my research and more than 15 research groups worldwide have integrated my datasets into their research projects. Active projects Meddle: Improving transparency and control in mobile networks. Improving Internet Reliability: Diagnosis and remediation for Internet paths. Selected Publications (full list) Improving Internet Availability with LIFEGUARD, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2012, August 2012. (PDF Format) Crowdsourcing Service-Level Network Event Detection, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2010, August 2010. (Details and PDF) Taming the Torrent: A practical approach to reducing cross-ISP traffic in P2P systems, In Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM 2008, August 2008. (Details and PDF) Current I am currently a postdoctoral research associate in Tom Anderson's group at the University of Washington. This work has been generously funded by the CI Fellows program. I will be joining Northeastern University as an assistant professor in the fall of 2013. News Starting in the Fall of 2013, I will be an assistant professor at Northeastern University! I'm happy to announce that my coauthors and I will have 2 papers in SIGCOMM 2013! One paper is about identifying the origins of BGP path changes -- with Umar Javed, Italo Cunha, Ethan Katz-Bassett, Arvind Krishnamurthy and Tom Anderson. The other is about an efficient anonymity network that is resilient to traffic analysis -- with Stevens Le Blond, Wenxuan Zhou, Hitesh Ballani, Peter Druschel and Paul Francis. Congrats to everyone involved! Ethan Katz-Bassett and I were awarded an M-Lab Network Research Grant for investigating the origins of the mobile Internet performance. Thanks M-Lab! I'll be a poster/demo chair for SIGCOMM 2014 in Chicago! I'll be serving on the TPC for the CoNEXT '13 Student Workshop. This is a great venue for early feedback (see below). My fantastic collaborator, Ashwin Rao, was awarded one of 8 best paper awards at the CoNEXT '12 Student Workshop for Meddle: Middleboxes for Increased Transparency and Control of Mobile Traffic! Older news... Background I earned my PhD in Computer Science from Northwestern University in June, 2010, where I was awarded two Cabell Fellowships and 2009/2010 Outstanding Dissertation in EECS. Prior to that, I graduated from Amherst College, magna cum laude, in 2002 with a double-major in Physics and French. Since the job market for francophone physicists dried up, I was left with no choice but to pursue a career in the textbook-authorship business with Deitel & Associates. In two years, I worked on three books, two of which I coauthored. After that, I decided it was time for me to stop writing about others' work and start making my own to write about. Fortunately, Fabián saw fit to entertain this notion, and the rest is history. Cetera For those who don't know me, the following passage has become a theme that runs through my life. In short, I "push the rock," just like Sisyphus from Greek mythology. But Camus tells it better: As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock. -- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus