Dr. Narseo VALLINA-RODRÍGUEZ
Research Associate Professor (Ramon y Cajal Fellow)
- Affiliation: IMDEA Networks Institute
- PhD: Computer Science - University of Cambridge. Cambridge, UK
- Former position: Research Staff. International Computer Science Institute (ICSI)
- Joining date: October 2016
- Email: narseo.vallina@imdea.org
- Phone: +34 91 481 6956
Biography
I am an Associate Research Professor at IMDEA Networks where I lead the Internet Analytics Group (IAG). I am also a co-founders of AppCensus, a US-based startup focused on the development of technologies for analysing the privacy risks of mobile applications at scale. Before joining IMDEA, I was a research scientist at ICSI at Berkeley (USA) and I obtained my Ph.D in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof.Jon Crowcroft. I also worked at industry research labs such as Vodafone R&D, T-labs, and Telefonica Research.
My research falls in the areas of (1) network measurements, and (2) online privacy and security unifying technical and regulatory perspectives. I received best paper awards at the 2020 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), USENIX Security’19, ACM IMC’18, ACM HotMiddlebox’15, and ACM CoNEXT’14. For my research contributions, I have been selected as ACM Senior Member in 2021.
The societal value of my research contributions has been recognized also by European Data Protection Agencies and key industry players. My work has influenced policy changes and triggered security improvements in the Android platform and the Linux kernel. In 2020, I have been selected as a Ramón y Cajal Senior Research Fellow by the Spanish Ministry of Science. I also received multiple distinctions such as the AEPD Emilio Aced Award (2019, 2020 and 2021), the CNIL-INRIA Privacy Protection Award (2019 and 2021), the Caspar Bowden PETS Award (2020), and the IETF/IRTF Applied Networking Research Award. Additionally, I am the recipient of industry grants such as the 2018 Google Faculty Research Awards, DataTransparencyLab Grant in 2016, and Qualcomm’s Innovation Fellowship in 2012. International media outlets like The Washington Post, The Markup, The New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Wired, ArsTechnica, NPR, and El Pais have covered my research findings.
A PDF version of my full CV is available here.
For an up-to-date and complete list of my research publications, you can visit my Google Scholar or my ORCID profiles.
I am always looking for motivated PostDocs, Ph.D., master’s and undergraduate students interested in exploring the general areas of network measurements, mobile security and privacy. If you are one of them, feel free to contact me at any time to explore potential opportunities.
- ACM Senior Member 2021
- AEPD Emilio Aced Award 2021. Awarded Paper: 50 Ways to Leak Your Data: An Exploration of Apps’
Circumvention of the Android Permissions System (Published at USENIX Security’19) - 2020 Ramon y Cajal Fellow.
- 2020 Caspar Bowden Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Awarded Paper: “Won’t somebody think of the children?” examining COPPA compliance at scale (Paper published at PETS’18)
- IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 2020. Best Practical Paper Award. Awarded Paper: An Analysis of Pre-installed Android Software.
- AEPD Emilio Aced Award 2020. Awarded Paper: Angel or devil? a privacy study of mobile parental control apps (Published at PETS’20)
- INRIA-CNIL 2019 Privacy Protection Prize. Awarded Paper: An Analysis of Pre-installed Android Software. (Paper published at IEEE Symposium on S&P 2020)
- AEPD Emilio Aced Award 2019. Awarded Paper: An Analysis of Pre-installed Android Software. (Paper published at IEEE Symposium on S&P 2020)
- USENIX Security Symposium 2019. Distinguished Paper Award. Awarded Paper: 50 ways to leak your data: An exploration of apps’ circumvention of the android permissions system.
- Google Faculty Research Awards 2018 (Privacy)
- ACM IMC 2018. Distinguished Paper Award. Awarded Paper: Coming of Age: A Longitudinal Study of TLS Deployment
- ACM IMC 2018. Community Contribution Award. Awarded Paper: A Long Way to the Top: Significance, Structure, and Stability of Internet Top Lists
- 2017 IETF/IRPF Applied Networking Research Prize. Awarded Paper: A multi-perspective analysis of carrier-grade NAT deploymentA multi-perspective analysis of carrier-grade NAT deployment, (Published at ACM IMC’16)
- 2016 Data Transparency Lab Grant
- 2015 ACM HotMiddlebox. Best-paper Award. Awarded paper: Header enrichment or ISP enrichment? Emerging privacy threats in mobile networks
- ACM CoNEXT 2014. Best short-paper award. Awarded Paper: A Tangled Mass: The Android Root Certificate Stores
- Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship. 2012
Ph.D students:
- Nipuna Weerasekara (2022-Present)
- Vinuri Bandara (2022-Present)
- Aniketh Girish (2020-Present)
- Alvaro Feal (2018-Present)
- Julien Gamba Google Ph.D Fellow, Consumer Reports’ Digital Lab Fellow, Norton Lifelock Fellow (2017-Present)
Graduated Ph.D students:
- Abbas Razaghpanah (Now Research Scientist at ICSI, co-supervised with Prof. Phillipa Gill)
Former post-docs:
- Srdjan Matic (2021), now a Researcher at IMDEA Software
- Marius Paraschiv (2019-2020), now a Post-Doc at the Data Transparency Group
- PC chair. 1st ACM MobiSys Workshop on Mobile Data (MOBIDATA), 2016. Co-located with ACM Mobicom
- Demo co-chair at ACM Mobicom, 2020
- Jury: 2021 CNIL-INRIA Privacy Award, 2020 ACM Mobicom Student Research Competition (SRC), 2019 ACM IMC Best Paper Award Committee.
- Workshop co-chair at ACM CoNEXT, 2018
- PC Member: USENIX Security (2023), ACM SIGSAC CCS (2020, 2021), ACM Internet Measurements Conference (IMC) (2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018), Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS) (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018), IEEE/IFIP TMA Conference (TMA) (2021, 2019, 2018), Passive and Active Measurements (PAM) (2019, 2018, 2017), ACM CoNEXT (2018, 2017), Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT) (2018), ACM HotMobile (2018), ACM CoNEXT Student Workshop (2016, 2015).
- Journal reviewer: SIGCOMM CCR, IEEE Transactions of Networking, IEEE Communication Letters,
IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Measuring and Troubleshooting the Internet, IEEE Internet Computing, IEEE Transactions of Mobile Computing.
Research projects
ODIO
Main researcher
The Open Digital Identity Observatory
More infoarrow_right_altSoftAuditor
Main researcher
Comprehensive data-driven software analysis for the 21st century
More infoarrow_right_altTRUST aWARE
Main researcher
Enhancing Digital Security, Privacy and TRUST in softWARE
More infoarrow_right_altSMOOTH
Main researcher
GDPR Compliance Cloud Platform for Micro Enterprises
More infoarrow_right_alt
News
- 10/03/2022. I have been interviewed at El Español's "Disruptores-Innovadores" section (in Spanish). I talked about my professional and research career.
- 02/02/2022. I have been selected as ACM Senior Member 2021
- 28/01/2022. Our paper "50 ways to leak your data" has been awarded with the AEPD Emilio Aced Award 2021.
- 01/11/2021. Talha will be presenting our work on the (in)correct use of TLS standards by IoT devices at the MAPGR meeting at the IETF-112
- 15/09/2021. Truly honoured for being invited to talk about online privacy and the tracking industry at Gijón conCiencia with Gemma Galdón.
- 15/08/2021. I have been selected as a Ramon y Cajal 2020 Fellow!
- 21/07/2021. ARCEP's "State of the Internet in France" 2021 report cited our paper "The Lockdown Effect: Implications of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Internet Traffic
- 14/07/2021. Our paper "Tracking the deployment of TLS 1.3 on the web: a story of experimentation and centralization" has been selected as "Best of ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR)".
- 10/07/2021. I will be serving as jury member for the 6th CNIL-INRIA Privacy Award
- 01/06/2021. Our Communications of the ACM paper about how the Covid-19 pandemic waves impacted on Internet traffic patterns is now out.
- 27/05/2021. I had the great honor of giving the opening keynote at the 6th International Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity (WTMC 2021), co-located with the IEEE Symposium on S&P.
- 26/05/2021. Edu presented our paper about the security and privacy risks of Android Firmware-over-the-Air apps at the IEEE Symposium on S&Ps
- 18/05/2021. My colleague Dr. Serge Egelman testified at the US Senate about the COPPA Rule, and presented the highlights of our research in this domain.
- 27/04/2021. The Markup has covered our investigation about the privacy risks of Google's Exposure Notification API for contact tracing.
- 31/03/2021. The Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood launched a request to the USA FTC to investigate Google's potentially unfair and deceptive practices in marketing apps for children citing our PETS'18 paper.
- 28/01/2021. Our PETS 2020 paper about the Privacy Risks of Parental Control Applications has received the AEPD Emilio Aced Award 2020.