Stephen Checkoway
Doctor of Philosophy
Computer Science
Johns Hopkins University

Contact

Johns Hopkins University
Department of Computer Science
3400 N. Charles St.
Maryland Hall, Room 211
Baltimore, MD 21218-2682
Phone – (410) 516-6718
Fax – (410) 516-3301
JHU Email – <s | cs jhu edu>
UCSD Email – <s | cs ucsd edu>

Office Hours

Wednesday, 13:30–15:30
By appointment.

Research Interests

My primary research interests are in systems security and voting—particularly in voting security and post-election auditing. Beyond those, I am interested in a number of topics such as tech policy—particularly 4th amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures as it relates to computers—modern algebra, category theory, cryptography, programming languages, and compilers.

I think research is a social activity and I enjoy collaboration with researchers both inside and outside of JHU.

I am a member of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute as well as the Center for Automotive Embedded System Security—a collaboration between UC San Diego and the University of Washington. I am also working with Anand Sarwate on post-election auditing methods. At any given time, I have a host of other projects that I am working on or wish to be working on. I'm always looking for another interesting collaborative project, time permitting.

I am currently looking for students. If you're a Hopkins student, feel free to stop by my office to chat or send me mail!

Teaching

CS 460 Software Vulnerability Analysis: Fall 2012
CS 668 Advanced Topics in Software Security: Spring 2013

Professional Activities

I am a member of the JETS editorial board.
I am a member of the WOOT 2013 program committee.
I am a member of the CSET 2013 program committee.
I was a member of the EVT/WOTE 2012 program committee.
I was a member of the DIMVA 2012 program committee.
I was a member of the EVT/WOTE 2011 program committee.
I was a member of the WOOT 2011 program committee.

Papers

S. Checkoway and H. Shacham. Iago Attacks: Why the System Call API is a Bad Untrusted RPC Interface. In R. Bodík, ed. Proceedings of ASPLOS 2013. ACM Press, Mar. 2013.
A. Sarwate, S. Checkoway, and H. Shacham. Risk-limiting Audits for Nonplurality Elections. Statistics, Politics and Policy 3(3):29–64, Jan. 2013.
S. Checkoway. Portably solving the access(2)/open(2) race. Tiny Transactions on Computer Science 1, Sep. 2012
A. Sarwate, S. Checkoway, and H. Shacham. Risk-limiting Audits for Nonplurality Elections. Technical Report CS2010-0967, UC San Diego, Jun. 2011.
S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor, D. Anderson, H. Shacham, S. Savage, K. Koscher, A. Czeskis, F. Roesner, T. Kohno. Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces. In D. Wagner, ed. Proceedings of USENIX Security 2011. USENIX, Aug. 2011.
S. Meiklejohn, K. Mowery, S. Checkoway, and H. Shacham. The Phantom Tollbooth: Privacy-Preserving Electronic Toll Collection in the Presence of Driver Collusion. In D. Wagner, ed. Proceedings of USENIX Security 2011. USENIX, Aug. 2011.
C. Kanich, S. Checkoway, and K. Mowery. Putting Out a HIT: Crowdsourcing Malware Installs. In D. Brumley and M. Zalewski, eds. Proceedings of WOOT 2011. USENIX, Aug. 2011.
S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor, D. Anderson, H. Shacham, S. Savage, K. Koscher, A. Czeskis, F. Roesner, T. Kohno. Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces. Report prepared for the NAS Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration, Mar. 2011.
S. Checkoway, L. Davi, A. Dmitrienko, A.-R. Sadeghi, H. Shacham, and M. Winandy. Return-Oriented Programming without Returns. In A. Keromytis and V. Shmatikov, eds., Proceedings of CCS 2010, pages 559–572. ACM Press, Oct. 2010.
S. Checkoway, A. Sarwate, and H. Shacham. Single-Ballot Risk-Limiting Audits Using Convex Optimization. In D. Jones, J.-J. Quisquater, and E. Rescorla, eds., Proceedings of EVT/WOTE 2010. USENIX/ACCURATE/IAVoSS, Aug. 2010.
S. Checkoway, H. Shacham, and E. Rescorla. Don’t take LaTeX files from strangers In R. Farrow, ed., ;login: The USENIX Magazine, pages 17–22. USENIX, Aug. 2010.
K. Koscher, A. Czeskis, F. Roesner, S. Patel, T. Kohno, S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor, D. Anderson, H. Shacham, and S. Savage. Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Automobile. In D. Evans and G. Vigna, eds., Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (“Oakland”) 2010, pages 447–462. IEEE Computer Society, May 2010.
S. Checkoway, H. Shacham, and E. Rescorla. Are Text-Only Data Formats Safe? Or, Use This LaTeX Class File to Pwn Your Computer. In M. Bailey, ed., Proceedings of LEET 2010. USENIX, Apr. 2010.
S. Checkoway and H. Shacham. Escape From Return-Oriented Programming: Return-oriented Programming without Returns (on the x86). Technical Report CS2010-0954, UC San Diego, Feb. 2010.
S. Checkoway, A.J. Feldman, B. Kantor, J.A. Halderman, E.W. Felten, and H. Shacham. Can DREs Provide Long-Lasting Security? The Case of Return-Oriented Programming and the AVC Advantage. In D. Jefferson, J.L. Hall and T. Moran, eds., Proceedings of EVT/WOTE 2009. USENIX/ACCURATE/IAVoSS, Aug. 2009.
S. Checkoway. Methods of Post-election Confidence-level Auditing. Research examination, written report, Sep. 2008.
W. Zhang, S. Checkoway, B. Calder, and D.M. Tullsen. Dynamic Code Value Specialization Using the Trace Cache Fill Unit. In K. Rudd and C. Pixley, eds., Proceedings of ICCD 2006, pages 10–16. IEEE Computer Society, Oct. 2006.

Election Data

This technical report used data from real IRV elections. This data is collected in a common format, along with the scripts that generate the data from a more verbose format used by some counties. In addition, the code used to generate the results in the report is available here.

Musings

Stewart Baker's Take on the TSA. Stewart Baker has a seriously creepy take on why people dislike the TSA. Last updated, 2012-11-28.
Return-Oriented Programming's Status is Unchanged. Taking a look at the winners of Microsoft's BlueHat Prize Contest. Last updated, 2012-08-22.
100% less likely. Examining a shocking statement that mothers are 100% less likely to be hired than nonmothers. Last updated, 2012-07-28.
The Resolution Pat Down. My experience getting a “resolution pat down” at PDX. I don't handle it as well as I could have. Last updated, 2012-05-31.
Learning how a PC actually boots up. Lightly edited notes from my examination of the bootup sequence of an embedded 486. Last updated, 2012-05-12.
Wiretapping email or: When is email delivered?. When is email legally considered delivered and thus not covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act? Last updated, 2011-10-03.
Appearing in the news and hitting people in the head. My first time appearing in the news. Last updated, 2011-07-02.
More LATEX Hacking. A small case of hubris. Last updated, 2011-03-22.
The TSA Grope: A Response to Benjamin Wittes. The main criticism of the TSA in recent days is not that they are not like the Israelis, it's that the TSA has overstepped its authority or has too much authority. Last updated, 2010-11-22.
On Disassembling Embedded Code. Musings on properties of embedded code which make it more or less difficult to disassemble based on personal experience. Last updated, 2010-04-18.