Thomas S. Benjamin, CV

Printable [pdf] version

Contact Information

32 West Street
Carriage House 2
Cold Spring, NY 10516
+1 (917) 744-7934
tomb@cryptocracy.net

http://cryptocracy.net

Research Interests

Computer security and privacy. Anonymity networks. Implantable medical devices. RFID.

Education

2008 – 2010 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Ph. D. Studies; ABD
2007 – 2009 IBM Research Zurich Research Laboratory
Pre-Doctoral Research
2004 – 2007 University of Massachusetts Amherst
M.S. in Computer ScienceThesis topic: Cloning resistant anonymous credentials
2003 – 2004 Columbia University
Continuing education in computer science
1996 – 2000 Yale University
B.S. In Computer Science
1990 – 1996 Riverdale Country School
Graduated Cum Laude, and later returned to teach

Awards

IEEE Security and Privacy Best Paper Award for: Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses

Peer Reviewed Publications

Please note: I have omitted institutional affiliations for brevity. Please see the papers for affiliations.

Towards Practical Identification of HF RFID Devices
Boris Danev, Srdjan Capkun, Ramya Jayaram Masti, Thomas S. Benjamin
ACM Transactions on Information and System Security (TISSEC), 2012h
Preliminary Thoughts on Privacy Supporting Binding of Biometrics to Credentials
Jan Camenisch, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin
Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technology (HotPETs 2010)
2010, Berlin, Germany
Proximity-based Access Control for Implantable Medical Devices
Kasper Bonne Rasmussen, Claude Castelluccia, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin and Srdjan Capkun
16th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) 2009
Chicago, USA
Accountable Privacy Supporting Services
Jan Camenisch, Thomas Gross, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin
Journal of Identity in the Information Society, 2009, Springer
Physical-layer Identification of RFID Devices
Boris Danev, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Srdjan Capkun
Usenix Security 2009
San Diego, USA
Rethinking Accountable Privacy Supporting ServicesJan Camenisch, Thomas Gross, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin ACM Digital Identity Management
2008, Fairfax, VA, USA
Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses
Daniel Halperin, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Benjamin Ransford, Shane S. Clark, Benessa Defend, Will Morgan, Kevin Fu, Tadayoshi Kohno, and William H. Maisel M.D.
Winner: Best Paper Award
IEEE Security and Privacy (Oakland)2008, Oakland, CA, USA
Security and Privacy for Implantable Medical Devices
Daniel Halperin, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Kevin Fu, Tadayoshi Kohno, William H. Maisel M.D.
IEEE Pervasive Computing
2008, IEEE
Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-enabled Credit Cards
Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Daniel V. Bailey, Kevin Fu, Ari Juels, and Tom O’Hare
Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2007 Scarborough, Trinidad/Tobago
Nonesuch: A Mix Network with Sender Unobservability
Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Andrei Serjantov, and Benessa Defend
Workshop for Privacy in Electronic Society 2006 Alexandria, VA, USA
Privacy for Public Transit
Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Hee-Jin Chae, Benessa Defend, and Kevin Fu
Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2006 Cambridge University, England

Technical papers and patents

Efficient Tight Interval Proofs with Camenisch-Gross Encoding. Camenisch J, Gross T, Heydt-Benjamin TS IBM Research Report RZ3800, IBM Research Division, Zurich, Switzerland.2011
Cryptographic Proofs In Data Processing SystemsCamenisch J, Gross T, Heydt-Benjamin TS US Patent Filing: 13/194,0692011
Cryptographic Encoding and Decoding of Secret DataCamenisch J, Gross T, Heydt-Benjamin TS US Patent No.: US 2010/0142704 A1Pub. Date: June 2010
Cryptographic Protocols of the Identity Mixer Library Patrik Bichsel, Carl Binding, Jan Camenisch, Thomas Groß, Tom Heydt-Benjamin, Dieter Sommer, and Greg Zaverucha IBM Research Report RZ3730, IBM Research Division, Zurich Switzerland, March 2009.
RFID Payment Card VulnerabilitiesThomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Daniel V. Bailey, Kevin Fu, Ari Juels, and Tom O’Hare UMASS Amherst Technical Report, 2

 Professional Experience

Cryptocracy LLC, Member 2011 – Present
The Tor Project, Freelance Research Scientist 2010 – Present
ETH Zurich (The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Research Assistant
2008 – 2010
IBM Research Zurich
Pre-doctoral researcher for the Cryptography and Security group
2008 – 2009
IBM Research Zurich
Intern for the Cryptography and Security group
2007
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Research Assistant
2004 – 2007
Columbia University
Research Assistant
2003 – 2004
Riverdale Country School
Teacher, Administrative staff member.
2000 – 2004

Panels and Invited Talks

Panel: Personal and Professional Privacy EuroDIG, Geneva, Switzerland, Sept 2009
Invited talk: Wireless Security and Physical Layer Identification KU Leuven, Belgium, Feb 2009
Invited talk: The world goes wireless: A paradigm shift still not fully realized RWTH Aachen, Germany, Feb 2009
Invited talk: Anonymous Credentials in Electronic ID Advanced Applications for Electric Identity Cards (ADAPID) Leuven, Belgium, July 2008
Invited talk: Privacy Supporting Identity Systems – Theory Meets Practice The International Conference on Java Technology (Jazoon) Zurich, Switzerland, June 2008
Invited talk: Privacy and Identity Management Secure Vehicular Communications
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, Feb 2008
Panel: Ethics in Privacy Research
Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin (Proposer and Moderator), Panelists: Caspar Bowden, George Danezis (co-proposer), Steven Murdoch, Andreas Pfitzmann, Gene Tsudik
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium
Ottawa, CA, 2007

Program Committee Memberships

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2008 – 2012
Workshop for Privacy in Electronic Society
(An ACM CCS Affiliated Workshop)
2006, 2007, 2010
Security and Privacy in Medical and Home-Care Systems
(An ACM CCS Affiliated Workshop)
2009, 2010
Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PC co-chair) 2008, 2009

University Committees and Service

Academic Standards and Curriculum Committee of the Graduate School 2004 – 2006
UMASS Graduate Council: the advisory and oversight committee of the graduate school. [Received 2 letters of commendation from chairperson] 2004 – 2006
Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Student Information Systems 2004 – 2006
UMASS Graduate Student Senate; elected representative of the computer science department 2004 – 2006
Yale University Departmental Student Advisory Committee; elected representative 1999 – 2000

Selected Media Coverage

“Good-Guy Hacker Rides into Town” Putnam County News and Recorder
December 21 2011
“A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks” The New York Times, March 12 2008
“Heart-Device Hacking Risks Seen” The Wall Street Journal, March 12 2008
Guest on National Public Radio’s Leonard Lopate show to discuss privacy for public transportation 40 minute interview, March 9, 2007
“Security researcher shows just how easy it is to steal personal data from RFID-bearing credit cards” Live interview on Fox news, December 2006
“’Smart’ cards are quick, but are they safe?” NBC’s Today Show, October 26, 2006
“No-Swipe Credit Cards Could Make ID Theft Easier” ABC’s Good Morning America, October 24, 2006
“Researchers See Privacy Pitfalls in No-Swipe Credit Cards” The New York Times, October 23, 2006

 Popular Science and Public Service

Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Mechatronische Kunst (SGMK)
Teacher (Science enrichment for children and adults)
2009
Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner’s office:
RFID and electronic drivers’ license related subjects.
2008
Consumer Reports: advice on and explanation of RFID related subjects. 2008

Selected Teaching and Advising

GSoC Google Mentor: “Blocking-resistant Transport Evaluation Framework”, Student Brandon Wiley 2011
Honors diploma thesis advisor: Timur Alperovich and Shane Clark
Topic: embedded device security and privacy.
2007
Research mentor: Russel Silva
Topic: embedded device security and privacy.
2006
Teaching Associate (Instructor) cs197c: The C++ Programming Language 2005
Teaching Assistant cs445: Information Systems 2005
Teaching Associate (Instructor): The Unix Programming Environment 2005
AB level Advanced Placement Computer Science: In teaching this course I designed my own curriculum based on the ACM CS1 & CS2 curriculum, exceeding the College Board AP requirements. 2000 – 2004
Introduction to Technology for Grade Nine / Ten
In the 2003-2004 school year, I was the curriculum coordinator, coordinating three teachers with 5 sections
2000 – 2004
Introduction to Technology for Grade Seven 2000 – 2002

 Invited Peer Review

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2008, 2009, 2011
Journal of Computer Security 2010, 2011
Computers & Security 2011
Communications of the ACM (CACM) 2010
Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA) 2010
IEEE International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (ICICS) 2009
IEEE INFOCOM 2006, 2009, 2010
International Conference on Networked Sensing Systems (INSS) 2009
IEEE SECON 2009
Journal of Computer Science 2008
ACM Transactions on Information and System Security (TISSEC) 2008
IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS) 2008
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland) 2006 – 2008
Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2008
IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2008
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 2007
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2006 – 2007
ACM Communications and Computer Security (CCS) 2007
Workshop on RFID Security (RFIDsec) 2007
International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security 2007
IFIP SEC 2007
Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2005

Memberships

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Mensa

Personal

Captain Emeritus of UMASS Tae Kwon Do, 10 year volunteer EMT in the South Bronx

V a.04 Spring 2012