Research

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Clinical Decision-Making Group

We focus on furthering the application of technology and artificial intelligence in medicine and health-care.

+10

Peter Szolovits

Leads

Peter Szolovits

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Lead

Peter Szolovits

+10

Peter Szolovits

Research Group

Decentralized Information Group

We are investigating decentralized technologies that affect social change.

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Group

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

We aim to develop the science of autonomy toward a future with robots and AI systems integrated into everyday life, supporting people with cognitive and physical tasks.

+15

Daniela Rus

Leads

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniela Rus

+15

Daniela Rus

Research Group

Programming Languages and Software Engineering

We research programming languages, software engineering, and related work in human-computer interaction.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

World Wide Web Consortium

Led by Web inventor and Director, Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeff Jaffe, the W3C focus is on leading the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing standards, protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+23

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+23

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Networks and Mobile Systems

We conduct research in many areas of networking: wireless networks, Internet architecture and protocols, overlay and peer-to-peer networks, sensor networks, network security, and networked systems.

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Leads

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Research Group

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

We at PDOS build and investigate software systems for parallel and distributed environments.

Leads

Frans Kaashoek

Robert Morris

Nickolai Zeldovich

Adam Belay

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Frans Kaashoek

Robert Morris

Nickolai Zeldovich

Adam Belay

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Research Group

Complexity Theory Group

Our interests span quantum complexity theory, barriers to solving P versus NP, theoretical computer science with a focus on probabilistically checkable proofs (PCP), pseudo-randomness, coding theory, and algorithms.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Quantum Information Science Group

Our research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

Peter Shor

Leads

Peter Shor

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Peter Shor

Research Group

Multicore Algorithmics

We develop techniques for designing, implementing, and reasoning about multiprocessor algorithms, in particular concurrent data structures for multicore machines and the mathematical foundations of the computation models that govern their behavior.

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nir Shavit

Research Group

Theory of Computation Group

Theory research at CSAIL covers a broad spectrum of topics, including algorithms, complexity theory, cryptography, distributed systems, parallel computing and quantum computing.

Leads

Bonnie Berger

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Alan Edelman

Michael Goemans

Shafi Goldwasser

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Nancy Lynch

Aleksander Madry

Albert R. Meyer

Silvio Micali

Ankur Moitra

Ronald Rivest

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Peter Shor

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Bonnie Berger

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Alan Edelman

Michael Goemans

Shafi Goldwasser

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Nancy Lynch

Aleksander Madry

Albert R. Meyer

Silvio Micali

Ankur Moitra

Ronald Rivest

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Peter Shor

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Theory of Distributed Systems Group

We work on a wide range of problems in distributed computing theory. We study algorithms and lower bounds for typical problems that arise in distributed systems---like resource allocation, implementing shared memory abstractions, and reliable communication.

Nancy Lynch

Leads

Nancy Lynch

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nancy Lynch

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+16

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+16

22 Project Results matching all criteria

Project

Solid: Social Linked Data

Solid aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy.

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Programming Languages & Verification

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Project

Kami: A Modular Deductive Hardware Verification Platform

A framework to support implementing, specifying, verifying, and compiling hardware designs, modularly

Adam Chlipala

Leads

Adam Chlipala

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Adam Chlipala

Project

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Using AI methods, we are developing an attack tree generator that automatically enumerates cyberattack vectors for industrial control systems in critical infrastructure (electric grids, water networks and transportation systems). The generator can quickly assess cyber risk for a system at scale.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Securing IoT

IoT devices primarily use free embedded Linux which has many security flaws. We are conducting penetration tests on IoT and developing a secure version of embedded Linux.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Secure Public-Key Distribution

Our work aims to ensure nobody's listening in on your online activities, whether you are doing online banking or texting your friends via WhatsApp.

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Leads

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Project

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

An approach to reducing risks of attack on cyberphysical infrastructure (such as water purification plants and electric grids) with new software design and analysis techniques.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Advanced Network Architecture Group

Daniel Jackson

Project

Denial of Service Mitigation through Protocol Design

We aim to better understand the features of network protocols that facilitate denial of service attacks, in order to design more robust protocols and architectures in the future and evaluate existing designs more accurately.

Karen Sollins

Leads

Karen Sollins

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Karen Sollins

Project

Data Garbling: Computing on Encrypted Data

We are investigating the limits of computing on encrypted data, with a focus on the private outsourcing of computation over sensitive data.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Adversarial Cyber Security

Our goal is to understand the nature of cyber security arms races between malicious and bonafide parties. Our vision is autonomous cyber defenses that anticipate and take measures against counter attacks.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Una-May O'Reilly

Project

Keys Under Doormats

Our report argues that giving the government special access to data poses major security risks

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Weitzner

Project

Using Bitcoin to prevent identify theft

System piggybacks on the digital currency’s security protocols to thwart hijacked servers.

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Srini Devadas

Leads

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Srini Devadas

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Srini Devadas

Project

Keeping America Safe: Toward More Secure Networks for Critical Sectors

Report warns of hacking risk to electric grid, oil pipelines, and other critical infrastructure

Joel Brenner

Leads

Joel Brenner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Joel Brenner

Project

Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data

Splinter protects users’ queries on public data and scales to realistic applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Towards Adversarially Robust Deep Neural Networks

We work towards a principled understanding of the non-robust nature of deep learning classifiers and build approaches to training reliably robust classifiers.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Graphics & Vision

Impact Areas

Aleksander Madry

Project

Robust Optimization in Machine Learning and Data Mining

Machine Learning

Many optimization problems in machine learning rely on noisy, estimated parameters. Neglecting this uncertainty can lead to great fluctuations in performance. We are developing algorithms for these already nonconvex problems that are robust to such errors.

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Leads

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Project

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

Even formally verified protocols that have been faithfully implemented have been found to have security vulnerabilities. A new framework eliminates such vulnerabilities by design.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Vuvuzela: Metadata private messaging

Vuvuzela is the first messaging system that provides differential privacy for users' metadata.

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Leads

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Research Areas

Impact Areas

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Random Graph with Applications in MPC

To explore how randomness in connectivity can improve the performance of secure multi-party computation (MPC) and the properties of communication graph to support MPC.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

To enable privacy preservation in decentralized optimization, differential privacy is the most commonly used approach. However, under such scenario, the trade-off between accuracy (even efficiency) and privacy is inevitable. In this project, distributed numerical optimization scheme incorporated with lightweight cryptographic information sharing are explored. The affect on the convergence rate from network topology is considered.

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Hanshen Xiao

Project

Alloy

Alloy is a language for describing structures and a tool for exploring them. It has been used in a wide range of applications from finding holes in security mechanisms to designing telephone switching networks. Now one of the main challenges is to make the system more usable and understandable for the user.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Simit: A Language for Computing on Sparse Systems

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

26 People Results matching all criteria

PI
Core/Dual

Saman Amarasinghe

Professor

Compilers, architectures, software engineering

E saman@csail.mit.edu

T 253-8879

Lead

Commit Group

Tiramisu Compiler

Member

Taco: The Tensor Algebra Compiler

Halide

OpenTuner: An Extensible Framework for Program Autotuning

Program Performance Prediction with Deep Learning

Compilers, architectures, software engineering

Jonathan Behrens

Graduate Student

E behrensj@mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

PI
Core/Dual

Tim Berners-Lee

Professor

Systems, privacy, inventor of the World Wide Web

E timbl@w3.org

T 253-5702

Lead

World Wide Web Consortium

Solid: Social Linked Data

Systems, privacy, inventor of the World Wide Web

PI
Core/Dual

Michael Carbin

Assistant Professor

Programming languages and systems.

E mcarbin@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5881

Lead

Programming Systems Group

Member

Programming with spaces

Program Performance Prediction with Deep Learning

Programming languages and systems.

Tej Chajed

Graduate Student

PhD student in systems

E tchajed@csail.mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Lead

FSCQ: File-system verification

Member

Kami: A Modular Deductive Hardware Verification Platform

PhD student in systems

PI
Core/Dual

Adam Chlipala

Associate Professor

Programming languages, formal methods, security & privacy, systems

E adamc@csail.mit.edu

T 324-8439

Lead

Compilation Using Correct-by-Construction Program Synthesis

Programming Languages & Verification

Hemiola: Structural Design and Proof of Cache-Coherence Protocols

Member

Compilation Using Correct-by-Construction Program Synthesis

Programming with spaces

FSCQ: File-system verification

Programming languages, formal methods, security & privacy, systems

PI
Core/Dual

David Clark

Senior Research Scientist

Internet architectures, communications policy, security

E ddc@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6003

Lead

Advanced Network Architecture Group

Keeping America Safe: Toward More Secure Networks for Critical Sectors

Member

Internet architectures, communications policy, security

PI
Core/Dual

Srini Devadas

Professor

Architectures, security, computer-aided design

E devadas@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0454

Lead

Using Bitcoin to prevent identify theft

Secure Demand Paging for Trusted Execution Environments

Scaling strong anonymity

Return of the Byzantine Generals

Member

Sanctum Secure Processor

A new way of handling all-to-all broadcast

Architectures, security, computer-aided design

Gregory Falco

Postdoctoral Associate

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

E gfalco@mit.edu

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

PI
Core/Dual

Shafi Goldwasser

Professor

Theory, cryptography, cybersecurity, complexity

E shafi@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5914

Lead

Complexity Theory Group

Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data

Member

Computational Connectomics Group

Theory, cryptography, cybersecurity, complexity

PI
Core/Dual

Daniel Jackson

Professor

Software design, programming, systems

E dnj@csail.mit.edu

T 258-8471

Lead

Rethinking Software Design

Gitless: a simple version control system built on top of Git

Déjà Vu: Constructing Apps from Concepts

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

An Interlock for Self Driving Cars

Alloy

Member

Espalier

Software design, programming, systems

PI
Core/Dual

Frans Kaashoek

Professor

Systems, networks, architectures

E kaashoek@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7149

Lead

Scaling Filesystems To Many Cores

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

FSCQ: File-system verification

Systems, networks, architectures

PI
Core/Dual

Lalana Kagal

Principal Research Scientist

Privacy, web decentralization, distributed data

E lkagal@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5845

Lead

The Car Can Explain!

Solid: Social Linked Data

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Privacy, web decentralization, distributed data

David Lazar

Graduate Student

David Lazar is a PhD student in systems security

E lazard@mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Lead

Vuvuzela: Metadata private messaging

Member

David Lazar is a PhD student in systems security

Ilia Lebedev

Graduate Student

E ilebedev@csail.mit.edu

Lead

Sanctum Secure Processor

Member

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Sanctum Secure Processor

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Graduate Student

Privacy and Big Data

E vaik@mit.edu

Lead

Member

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Privacy and Big Data

PI
Core/Dual

Una-May O'Reilly

Principal Research Scientist

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

E unamay@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6437

Lead

MOOC Learner Project: Data science for e-learning

Adversarial Cyber Security

GIGABEATS: Data science for medical sensor data

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

PI
Core/Dual

Martin Rinard

Professor

Systems, programming languages and verification

E rinard@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6922

Member

Systems, programming languages and verification

PI
Core/Dual

Ronald Rivest

Institute Professor

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

E rivest@mit.edu

T 253-5880

Lead

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Member

Keys Under Doormats

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

PI
Core/Dual

Daniela Rus

Director

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

E rus@csail.mit.edu

T 258-7567

RM 32/ 32-368/ 374

Lead

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Safety Standards for Autonomous Vehicles

Soft Contact Modeling

Practical Secure Computation

Self-Driving Vehicles

Robust Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

Brain-Controlled Robots

Planning in Congestion for Autonomous Vehicles

Socially-Compliant Behavior for Autonomous Driving

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

M-Blocks Modular Robotics

Robot Compiler

Distributed Robot Garden

Route and Motion Planning for Mobility-on-Demand with Rules of the Road

Member

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Wearable Blind Navigation

Drones that Drive

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

SoFi - The Soft Robotic Fish

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

Malte Schwarzkopf

Research Affiliate

E malte@csail.mit.edu

Lead

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

Member

Risk-aware Network Resource Allocation

PI
Core/Dual

Howard Shrobe

Principal Research Scientist

Architectures, cybersecurity, web policy

E hes@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7877

Lead

RADMAX

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Securing IoT

Member

Architectures, cybersecurity, web policy

PI
Core/Dual

Armando Solar-Lezama

Associate Professor

Programming languages, software analysis

E asolar@csail.mit.edu

T 258-9727

Lead

Synquid: Synthesis From Liquid Types

Computer-Aided Programming

An Interlock for Self Driving Cars

Programming languages, software analysis

PI
Core/Dual

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Associate Professor

Cryptography, encryption

E vinodv@csail.mit.edu

T 324-8444

Lead

Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data

Member

Cryptography, encryption

22 News Results matching all criteria

Algorithms & Theory AI & Machine Learning Computational Biology Computer Architecture Graphics & Vision Human-Computer Interaction Programming Languages & Software Engineering Robotics Security & Cryptography Systems & Networking Cybersecurity Education Energy Entertainment Health Care Manufacturing Transportation Wireless

June 27 '19

CSAIL hosts first-ever TEDxMIT

Speakers — all women — discuss everything from gravitational waves to robot nurses

CSAIL hosts first-ever TEDxMIT

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 20 '19

Platform ensures that web services adhere to users' privacy preferences

New MIT/Harvard platform acts as gatekeeper to ensure web services adhere to data restrictions

Platform ensures that web services adhere to users' privacy preferences

Algorithms & Theory AI & Machine Learning Cybersecurity Health Care Internet of Things Manufacturing Transportation Wireless

February 12 '19

MIT CSAIL holds trustworthy AI event with Microsoft

Workshop explores technical directions for making AI safe, fair, and understandable

MIT CSAIL holds trustworthy AI event with Microsoft

Algorithms & Theory Computer Architecture Big Data Cybersecurity Health Care Internet of Things Manufacturing

January 31 '19

MIT hosts workshop on theoretical foundations of deep learning

Last week MIT’s Institute for Foundations of Data Science (MIFODS) held an interdisciplinary workshop aimed at tackling the underlying theory behind deep learning. Led by MIT professor Aleksander Madry, the event focused on a number of research discussions at the intersection of math, statistics, and theoretical computer science.

MIT hosts workshop on theoretical foundations of deep learning

Thomas Bourgeat, Andrew Wright, Arvind and Sizhou Zhang

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Energy

October 22 '18

Opening up open-source to design better chips

MIT CSAIL system lets users change one part of a processor’s design without impacting the others

Opening up open-source to design better chips

Cybersecurity

October 18 '18

MIT cybersecurity summit features DHS CIO John Zangardi & senior leaders from Akamai & BT

On Wednesday, October 31 MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) will be hosting a special one-day conference with BT to convene security professionals, government officials and academic experts to talk about key issues in cybersecurity.

MIT cybersecurity summit features DHS CIO John Zangardi & senior leaders from Akamai & BT

AI & Machine Learning Computational Biology Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Health Care

October 18 '18

Cryptographic protocol enables greater collaboration in drug discovery

Neural network that securely finds potential drugs could encourage large-scale pooling of sensitive data.

Cryptographic protocol enables greater collaboration in drug discovery

Algorithms & Theory Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

August 08 '18

Holding law-enforcement accountable for electronic surveillance

CSAIL system encourages government transparency using cryptography on a public log of wiretap requests.

Holding law-enforcement accountable for electronic surveillance

Computational Biology Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Health Care

May 10 '18

Protecting confidentiality in genomic studies

Genome-wide association studies, which look for links between particular genetic variants and incidence of disease, are the basis of much modern biomedical research.

Protecting confidentiality in genomic studies

Tim Berners-Lee was honored with the Turing Award for his work inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and "the fundamental protocols and algorithms [that allowed] the web to scale."

Computer Architecture Big Data Cybersecurity Education Energy Entertainment Health Care Internet of Things Wireless

May 02 '18

From Utopia to Dystopia in 29 Short Years

May 2, 2018 - Sir Tim Berners-Lee of MIT gave a Dertouzos Distinguished Lecture titled "From Utopia to Dystopia in 29 Short Years."

From Utopia to Dystopia in 29 Short Years

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

April 24 '18

MIT engineering students team up with Georgetown lawyers-in-training on internet privacy legislation

Every spring, engineering students from MIT and law students from Georgetown University overcome the distance between their institutions and disciplines in a semester-long flurry of virtual classroom meetings and late-night Google hangout sessions, culminating in presentations to policy experts in DC.

MIT engineering students team up with Georgetown lawyers-in-training on internet privacy legislation

Human-Computer Interaction Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

April 13 '18

MIT experts discuss online security and protecting data in a “public-private” Internet age

Last week CSAIL hosted the fourth “Hot Topics in Computing” speaker series, a monthly forum where experts hold discussions with community members on various hot-button tech topics.

MIT experts discuss online security and protecting data in a “public-private” Internet age

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 23 '18

Private browsing gets more private

New system patches security holes left open by web browsers’ private-browsing functions.

Private browsing gets more private

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 13 '18

Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things

Special-purpose chip reduces power consumption of public-key encryption by 99.75 percent, increases speed 500-fold.

Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 01 '18

MIT security experts discuss “Spectre” and “Meltdown” processor flaws

Last week CSAIL hosted the second “Hot Topics in Computing” speaker series, a monthly forum where computing experts hold discussions with community members on various topics in the computer science field.

MIT security experts discuss “Spectre” and “Meltdown” processor flaws

Algorithms & Theory Security & Cryptography Big Data Cybersecurity Education Entertainment Health Care Internet of Things Manufacturing

January 16 '18

Goldwasser, Micali, and Rivest win BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards

This week it was announced that MIT professors and CSAIL principal investigators Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, Ronald Rivest, and former MIT professor Adi Shamir won this year’s BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in the Information and Communication Technologies category for their work in cryptography.

Goldwasser, Micali, and Rivest win BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards

Algorithms & Theory Robotics Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Internet of Things Manufacturing

December 11 '17

Four from MIT named 2017 Association for Computer Machinery Fellows

Today four MIT faculty were named among the Association for Computer Machinery's 2017 Fellows for making “landmark contributions to computing.”

Four from MIT named 2017 Association for Computer Machinery Fellows

Algorithms & Theory Programming Languages & Software Engineering Systems & Networking Cybersecurity

December 11 '17

Goldwasser gives briefing on cryptography to Congress

Last week CSAIL principal investigator Shafi Goldwasser spoke about cryptography and privacy as part of the annual congressional briefing of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).

Goldwasser gives briefing on cryptography to Congress

AI & Machine Learning Security & Cryptography Big Data Cybersecurity Internet of Things Transportation

November 02 '17

Fooling neural networks w/3D-printed objects

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of “neural networks” are increasingly used in technologies like self-driving cars to be able to see and recognize objects. Such systems could even help with tasks like identifying explosives in airport security lines.

Fooling neural networks w/3D-printed objects

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

October 22 '17

Selective memory

In a traditional computer, a microprocessor is mounted on a “package,” a small circuit board with a grid of electrical leads on its bottom. The package snaps into the computer’s motherboard, and data travels between the processor and the computer’s main memory bank through the leads.

Selective memory

Daniel Jackson was awarded the Outstanding Research Award and Impact Paper Award (photo credit Sharona Jacobs)

Algorithms & Theory AI & Machine Learning Big Data Cybersecurity

June 02 '17

CSAIL's Daniel Jackson receives two ACM awards

This week the Association for Computer Machinery presented CSAIL principal investigator Daniel Jackson with the 2017 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award for his pioneering work in software engineering. (This fall he also received the ACM SIGSOFT Impact Paper Award for his research method for finding bugs in code.)An EECS professor and associate director of CSAIL, Jackson was given the Outstanding Research Award for his “foundational contributions to software modeling, the creation of the modeling language Alloy, and the development of a widely used tool supporting model verification.”

CSAIL's Daniel Jackson receives two ACM awards

Researchers including MIT professor Daniela Rus (left) and research scientist Stephanie Gil (right) have developed a technique for preventing malicious hackers from commandeering robot teams’ communication networks.

AI & Machine Learning Robotics Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

March 16 '17

Security for multirobot systems

Distributed planning, communication, and control algorithms for autonomous robots make up a major area of research in computer science.

Security for multirobot systems

19 Group Results

Research Group

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Our vision is data-driven machine learning systems that advance the quality of healthcare, the understanding of cyber arms races and the delivery of online education.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Clinical Decision-Making Group

We focus on furthering the application of technology and artificial intelligence in medicine and health-care.

+10

Peter Szolovits

Leads

Peter Szolovits

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Lead

Peter Szolovits

+10

Peter Szolovits

Research Group

Complexity Theory Group

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+23

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+23

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+16

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+16

Research Group

Decentralized Information Group

We are investigating decentralized technologies that affect social change.

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Group

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

We aim to develop the science of autonomy toward a future with robots and AI systems integrated into everyday life, supporting people with cognitive and physical tasks.

+15

Daniela Rus

Leads

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniela Rus

+15

Daniela Rus

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Multicore Algorithmics

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nir Shavit

Research Group

Networks and Mobile Systems

We conduct research in many areas of networking: wireless networks, Internet architecture and protocols, overlay and peer-to-peer networks, sensor networks, network security, and networked systems.

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Leads

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Mohammad Alizadeh

Hari Balakrishnan

Research Group

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

We at PDOS build and investigate software systems for parallel and distributed environments.

Leads

Frans Kaashoek

Robert Morris

Nickolai Zeldovich

Adam Belay

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Frans Kaashoek

Robert Morris

Nickolai Zeldovich

Adam Belay

Research Group

Programming Languages and Software Engineering

We research programming languages, software engineering, and related work in human-computer interaction.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Quantum Information Science Group

Our research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

Peter Shor

Leads

Peter Shor

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Peter Shor

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Research Group

Theory of Computation Group

Theory research at CSAIL covers a broad spectrum of topics, including algorithms, complexity theory, cryptography, distributed systems, parallel computing and quantum computing.

Leads

Bonnie Berger

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Alan Edelman

Michael Goemans

Shafi Goldwasser

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Nancy Lynch

Aleksander Madry

Albert R. Meyer

Silvio Micali

Ankur Moitra

Ronald Rivest

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Peter Shor

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Bonnie Berger

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Alan Edelman

Michael Goemans

Shafi Goldwasser

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Nancy Lynch

Aleksander Madry

Albert R. Meyer

Silvio Micali

Ankur Moitra

Ronald Rivest

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Peter Shor

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Theory of Distributed Systems Group

Nancy Lynch

Leads

Nancy Lynch

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nancy Lynch

Research Group

World Wide Web Consortium

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Lead

Tim Berners-Lee

Jeffrey Jaffe

Judy Brewer

22 Project Results

Project

Adversarial Cyber Security

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Una-May O'Reilly

Project

Alloy

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Data Garbling: Computing on Encrypted Data

We are investigating the limits of computing on encrypted data, with a focus on the private outsourcing of computation over sensitive data.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Advanced Network Architecture Group

Project

Denial of Service Mitigation through Protocol Design

Karen Sollins

Leads

Karen Sollins

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Programming Languages & Verification

Karen Sollins

Project

Kami: A Modular Deductive Hardware Verification Platform

A framework to support implementing, specifying, verifying, and compiling hardware designs, modularly

Adam Chlipala

Leads

Adam Chlipala

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Adam Chlipala

Project

Keeping America Safe: Toward More Secure Networks for Critical Sectors

Report warns of hacking risk to electric grid, oil pipelines, and other critical infrastructure

Joel Brenner

Leads

Joel Brenner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Joel Brenner

Project

Keys Under Doormats

Our report argues that giving the government special access to data poses major security risks

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Weitzner

Project

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

Even formally verified protocols that have been faithfully implemented have been found to have security vulnerabilities. A new framework eliminates such vulnerabilities by design.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Hanshen Xiao

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Random Graph with Applications in MPC

To explore how randomness in connectivity can improve the performance of secure multi-party computation (MPC) and the properties of communication graph to support MPC.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Robust Optimization in Machine Learning and Data Mining

Machine Learning

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Leads

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Stefanie Jegelka

Matthew Staib

Project

Secure Public-Key Distribution

Our work aims to ensure nobody's listening in on your online activities, whether you are doing online banking or texting your friends via WhatsApp.

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Leads

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Project

Securing IoT

IoT devices primarily use free embedded Linux which has many security flaws. We are conducting penetration tests on IoT and developing a secure version of embedded Linux.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

An approach to reducing risks of attack on cyberphysical infrastructure (such as water purification plants and electric grids) with new software design and analysis techniques.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Solid: Social Linked Data

Solid aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy.

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Project

Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data

Splinter protects users’ queries on public data and scales to realistic applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas