Welcome!

ABSURD is a regional event for the Boston area to meet and discuss recent work in Usable Security and Privacy, broadly construed. We hope that this can be a venue for everyone to meet, hear more about each others’ work, and potentially develop fruitful collaborations. The ABSURD schedule consists of both research talks and networking events.

ABSURD will be held on April 11th, 2025 from 12-5pm at Tufts University.

Registration

To register for the event, please fill out the following form. There is no cost to attend.

Schedule

Long talks are 12 minutes with 3 minutes of questions, and short talks are 5 minutes with 2 minutes of questions.

April 11th, 2025

12:00-12:15pm: Arrival lunch provided
12:15-12:30am: Welcome and Intros
12:30-1:15am: Research Talks
- Priyanka Nanayakkara, Harvard University
  - Measure-Observe-Remeasure: An Interactive Paradigm for Differentially-Private Exploratory Analysis
- Kelly Wang, Northeastern University
  - Avoiding the Wrong Kind of Attention: A Look At Privacy Behaviors of Chinese Fandom Communities in a Censored and Surveilled Internet
- Stuart Schechter, Harvard University
  - Once you realize you have a choice, you no longer do: maximizing your impact by embracing stigmatized research topics
1:15-1:45am: Break
1:45-2:30am: WiP/Short Talks
- Karina LaRubbio, Brown University
  - Navigating Privacy and Safety with AI for Older Adults
- Olawale Akanji, Boston University
  - The Cost of Convenience: Identifying, Analyzing and Mitigating Predatory Loan Applications
- Katherine Quintanilla, Tufts University
  - Exploring the Security and Privacy Education Practices in K-12 Low-Income Schools
- Matthew Soto, Tufts University
  - Evaluating User Understanding of Oculus's Permission System
- Pujan Paudel, Boston University
  - Developing Data-Driven Approaches to Proactively Discover Online Scams
- Chuck McCallum, Harvard University
  - DP Wizard: Making Differential Privacy Easier with Interactive Visualization and Code Generation
- Simson Garfinkel, BasisTech LLC
  - The Slueth Kit and the Development of Usable Security Tools for Digital Forensics
2:30-2:45pm: Break
2:45-3:30pm: Research Talks
- Ronald Thompson, Tufts
  - An Investigation of Security and Privacy Concerns of Medical Professionals
- Tianshi Li, Northeastern University
  - Privacy Leakage Overshadowed by Views of AI: A Study on Human Oversight of Privacy in Language Model Agent
- Carson Powers, Tufts University
  - Threat Modeling Practices in Open-Source Software Projects
3:30-4:00pm: Break
4:00-4:45pm BOF Sessions - To suggest topics, please use this form
4:45pm-5:00pm: Closing Remarks

Location

All events will take place at Tufts University in room 260 of the Joyce Cummings Center (JCC).

Directions and other information

Transportation information is available here, including information for driving/parking and transit. If you are coming from downtown Boston, the easiest way to get to Tufts is via the Green Line E branch. The Tufts/Medford stop is next to the JCC

Visitor parking information for Tufts is available here. The daily rate is $20.

Virtual attendees

Zoom information will be sent to attendees who register for virtual participation a week ahead of the event

Prior Events

Spring 2024

Organizing Committee

Daniel Voitpka, Tufts University, daniel.votipka@tufts.edu

Diana Freed, Brown University, Diana_Freed@Brown.edu