CEAS 2010 Keynote Speakers

Luis von Ahn

“reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books”

CAPTCHAs are widespread security measures on the Web that prevent automated programs from abusing online services. They do so by asking humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet perform, such as deciphering distorted characters. This talk will describe reCAPTCHA, a CAPTCHA system used by over 200,000 sites to prevent spam and abuse, which at the same time is helping to digitize millions of books per year by asking users to decipher words from old books that computers cannot recognize.

Luis von Ahn is a professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University and a research scientist at Google. His current research interests include encouraging people to do work for free, as well as catching and thwarting cheaters in online environments. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Packard Fellowship, a Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship, and a Sloan Research Fellowship. He has been named one of the 50 Best Minds in Science by Discover Magazine, one of the 100 most innovative people in business by Fast Company, one of the "Brilliant 10" scientists of 2006 by Popular Science Magazine, one of the 50 most influential people in technology by Silicon.com, and one of the Top Innovators in the Arts and Sciences by Smithsonian Magazine.

Michael O’Reirdan

“Industry / Academia Disconnects”

Michael will review the role of MAAWG, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group. He will also review the current challenges faced by consumer ISPs in terms of both spam and malware. Finally, he will discuss the need for some more focussed aid from the academic community with regard to the problems that still remain to be resolved in terms of abuse and bots.

Michael O’Reirdan has been involved in the design and management of public facing messaging applications since 1991. He first got involved in the ISP business in 1997, with Cable and Wireless in the UK, where he was responsible for platform design and the technical operations of a number of ISPs hosted at C&W.

Mike is now a Distinguished Engineer at a large US ISP, where he has been responsible for a large number of projects, including directory technology, email migrations, and provisioning platform design and installation. Currently focused on security issues, Mike was responsible for the architecture of his employer’s current anti-spam and anti-bot platforms.

Mike is one of the co-authors of the MAAWG bot remediation paper and an IETF Internet draft on the same subject.

Mike has been chairman of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group since January 2008. MAAWG is the only organization that targets messaging abuse by simultaneously focusing on many of the varied facets of the international challenge. Its committees are organized around technology, industry collaboration, cooperative public policy efforts, and special interest groups. Projects are accomplished within these groups and their associated subcommittees. MAAWG is a member of the London Action Plan (LAP) and an associate partner of the StopSpamAlliance, has liaison relationships with the IETF and other organizations, and often joins forces with public policy agencies and other anti-abuse organizations.