Nicholas Weaver
International Computer Science Institute
2150 Shattuck Ave. #250, Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 847-1675
nweaver@icsi.berkeley.edu
nweaver@gmail.com
nweaver@skerry-tech.com

Education

• Ph D, Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley
  Completed October 15th, 2003. Degree Conferred December 2003
  Dissertation Title: The SFRA: A Fixed Frequence FPGA Architecture
  Committee: John Wawrzynek (chair), John Kubitowitz, and Steve Brenner
  

• BA, Astrophysics and Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley
  Degree Conferred Spring 1995

Publications

• Extracting Godl [sic] from the Salt Mines: Ethereum Miners Extracting Value
  J. Piet, J. Fairoze, N. Weaver. Workshop on Economics and Information Security 2022.
• Cache Me Outside: A New Look at DNS Cache Probing
  A. A. Niaki, W. Marczak, S. Farhoodi, A. McGregor, P. Gill, N. Weaver. Passive and Active Measurement 2021
• The Web3 Fraud
  N. Weaver. Usenix ;Login: December 2021
• Cryptocurrency: Burn it With Fire
  N. Weaver, Usenix ENIGMA 2019
• The RISKS of Cryptocurrencies
  N. Weaver, Communications of the ACM June 2018
• The Accuracy of the Demographic Inferences Shown on Google’s Ad Settings
  M. Tschantz, S. Egelman, J. Choi, N. Weaver, G. Friedland. Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society 2018
• Global Measurement of DNS Manipulation P. Pearce, B. Jones, F. Li, R. Ensafi, N. Feamster, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. Usenix Security 2017
• Autosonda: Discovering Rules and Triggers of Censorship Devices J. Jermyn, N. Weaver, Free and Open Communication on the Internet (FOCI) 2017
• A Multi-perspective Analysis of Carrier-Grade NAT Deployment P. Richter, F Wohlfart, N Vallina-Rodriguez, M. Allman, R. Bush, A. Feldmann, C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2016
• Host of Troubles: Multiple Host Ambiguities in HTTP Implementations J Chen, J Jiang, H. Duan, N. Weaver, T. Wan, V. Paxson. ACM Communications and Computer Security (CCS) 2016
• Detecting DNS Root Manipulation B. Jones, N. Feamster, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, M. Allman, Passive and Active Measurement (PAM) 2016
• The Golden Age of Bulk Surveillance N. Weaver, USENIX Enigma 2016
• Examining How the Great Firewall Discovers Hidden Circumvention Servers R. Ensafi, D. Fifield, P. Winter, N. Feamster, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2015
• Cookies Lack Integrity: Real-World Implications X. Zheng, J. Jiang, J. Liang, H. Duan, S. Chen, T. Wan, N. Weaver. Usenix Security 2015
• An Analysis of China’s “Great Cannon” B. Marczak, N. Weaver, J. Dalek, R. Ensafi, D. Fifield, S. McKune, A. Rey, J. Scott-Railton, R. Deibert, V. Paxson. Free and Open Communication on the Internet (FOCI) 2015
• Temporal Lensing and its Application in Pulsing Denial-of-Service Attacks R. Rasti, M. Murthy, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2015
• Ethical Concerns for Censorship Measurement B. Jones, R. Ensafi, N. Feamster, V. Paxson, N. Weaver. SIGCOMM Workshop on Ethics in Networked Systems Research 2015
• A Tangled Mass: The Android Root Certificate Stores N. Vallina-Rodriguez, J. Amann, C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. ACM CoNEXT 2014 (Best Short Paper Award)
• The Matter of Heartbleed Z. Durumeric, F. Li, J. Kasten, J. Amann, J. Beekman, M. Payer, N. Weaver, D. Adrian, V. Paxson, M. Bailey, J. Halderman. Internet Measucement Conference (IMC) 2014 (Best Paper Award)
• Here Be Web Proxies N. Weaver, C. Kreibich, M. Dam V. Paxson, Passive & Active Mesaurement (PAM) 2014
• Internet Nameserver IPv4 and IPv6 Address Relationships A. Berger, N. Weaver, R. Beverly, L. Campbell Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2013
• Practical Comprehensive Bounds on Surreptitious Communication Over DNS V. Paxson, M. Christodorescu, M. Javed, J. Rao, R. Sailer, D. Schales, M. Stoecklin, K. Thomas, W. Venema, N. Weaver. Usenix Security 2013
• Fathom: A Browser-based Network Measurement Platform M. Dhawan, J. Samuel, R. Teixeira, C. Kreibich, M. Allman, N. Weaver, V. Paxson. Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2012
• PharmaLeaks: Understanding the Business of Online Pharmaceutical Affiliate Programs D. McCoy, A. Pitsillidis, G. Jordan, N. Weaver, C. Kreibich, B. Krebs, G. Voelker, S. Savage, K. Levchenko. USENIX Security 2012
• Hold-On: Protecting Against DNS Packet Injection H. Duan, N. Weaver, Z. Zhao, M. Hu, J. Liang, J. Jiang, K. Li, V. Paxson. Workshop on Securing and Trusting Internet Names (SATIN), 2012
• The BIZ Top-Level Domain: Ten Years Later T. Halvorson, J. Szurdi, G. Maier, M. Felegyhazi, C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, K. Levchenko, V. Paxson. Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM) 2012
• GQ: Practical Containment for Measuring Modern Malware Systems C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, C. Kanich, W. Cui, V. Paxson. Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2011
• Experiences from Netalyzr with Engaging Users in End-System Measurement C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, G. Maier, B. Nechaev, V. Paxson. ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Measurements Up the Stack (W-MUST) 2011
• Redirecting DNS for Ads and Profit N. Weaver, C. Kreibich, V. Paxson. USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI) 2011
• Show Me the Money: Characterizing Spam-advertised Revenue C. Kanich, N. Weaver, D. McCoy, T. Halvorson, C. Kreibich, K. Levchenko, V. Paxson, G. Voelker, S. Savage. USENIX Security Symposium 2011
• Click Trajectories: End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain K. Levchenko, A. Pitsillidis, N. Chachra, B. Enright, M. Felegyhazi, C. Grier, T. Halvorson, C. Kanich, C. Kreibich, H. Liu, D. McCoy, N. Weaver, V. Paxson, G. M. Voelker, and S. Savage. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2011 (Test of Time Award), Oakland, USA.
• Implications of Netalyzr’s DNS Measurements N. Weaver, C. Kreibich, B. Nechaev, V. Paxson. Workshop on Securing and Trusting Internet Names (SATIN) 2011
• Netalyzr: Illuminating The Edge Network C. Kreibich, N. Weaver, B. Nechaev, V. Paxson. Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2010 (Test of Time Award)
• Botnet Judo: Fighting Spam with Itself A. Pitsillidis, K. Levchenko, C. Kreibich, C. Kanich, G.M. Voelker, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, S. Savage. Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2010
• An Architecture for Exploiting Multi-Core Processors to Parallelize Network Intrusion Prevention R. Sommer, V. Paxson, N. Weaver. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Special Issue: Multi-core Supported Network and System Security, 21(10), pp. 1255-1279, May 2009
• Edge Caches Should be Free N. Weaver. Tellecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) 2009
• Detecting Forged TCP Reset Packets N. Weaver, R. Sommer, V. Paxson. Network and Distributed Security Symposium (NDSS) 2009
• Principles for Developing Comprehensive Network Visibility M. Allman, C. Kreibich, V. Paxson, R. Sommer, N. Weaver. USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec) 2008
• Detecting In-Flight Page Changes with Web Tripwires C. Reis, S. Gribble, T. Kohno, N. Weaver. USENIX Symposium on Network Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI) 2008
• Shunting: A Hardware/Software Architecture for Flexible, High-Pergformance Network Intrusion Prevention J. Gonzalez, V. Paxson, Weaver. ACM Communication and Computer Security (CCS) 2007
• The Strengths of Weaker Identities: Opportunistic Personas M. Allman, C. Kreibich, V. Paxson, R. Sommer, N. Weaver. USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec) 2007
• An Architecture for Exploiting Multi-Core Processors to Parallelize Network Intrusion Prevention V. Paxson, R. Sommer, and N. Weaver. IEEE Sarnoff Symposium
• The Shunt: An FPGA-Based Accelerator for Network Intrusion Prevention N. Weaver, V. Paxson, J. Gonzalez. ACM Symposium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) 2007
• Rethinking Hardware Support for Network Analysis and Intrusion Prevention V. Paxson, K. Asanovic, S. Dharmapurikar, J. Lockwood, R. Pang, R. Somer, N. Weaver. USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec) 2006
• Protocol-Independent Adaptive Replay of Application Dialog W. Cui, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, R. Katz, Network and Distributed Security Symposium (NDSS) 2006
• Exploting Unterlying Structure for Detailed Reconstruction of an Internet Scale Event A. Kumar, V. Paxson, N. Weaver, ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2005
• The Top Speed of Flash Worms S. Staniford, D. Moore, V. Paxson, N. Weaver. ACM Workshop on Rapid Malcode (WORM) 2004
• Preliminary Results Using Scale-Down to Explore Worm Dynamics N. Weaver, I. Hamadeh, G. Kesidis, V. Paxson. ACM Workshop on Rapid Malcode (WORM) 2004
• Worms vs Perimeters: The Case for HardLANs N. Weaver, D. Ellis, S. Staniford, V. Paxson. Hot Interconnects 2004
• Reflections on the Witty Worm: Analyzing the Attacker N. Weaver and D. Ellis. ;login: June 2004
• Very Fast Containment of Scanning Worms N. Weaver, S. Staniford, V. Paxson. USENIX Security Conference 2004
• A Worst-Case Worm N. Weaver and V. Paxson. Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS) 2004
• The SFRA: A Corner-Turn FPGA Architecture N. Weaver, J. Hauser, J. Wawrzynek. ACM Symposium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) 2004
• A Taxonomy of Computer Worms N. Weaver, V. Paxson, S. Staniford, R. Cunningham. Workshop on Rapid Malcode (WORM) 2003
• Inside the Slammer Worm D. Moore, V. Paxson, S. Savage, C. Shannon, S. Staniford, N. Weaver. IEEE Magazine of Security and Privacy
• Post Placement C-slow Retiming for the Xilinx Virtex FPGA N. Weaver, Y. Markovskiy, Y. Patel, J. Wawrzynek. ACM Symposium on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) 2003
• How to 0wn the Internet in Your Spare Time V. Paxson, S. Staniford, N. Weaver. USENIX Security Symposium 2002
• A Comparison of the AES Candidates Amenability to FPGA Implementation N. Weaver and J. Wawrzynek. The Third Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Candidate Conference, 2000
• Object-Oriented Circuit Generators in Java M. Chu, N. Weaver, J. Sulimma, A. DeHon, J. Wawrzynek. IEEE Symposium on Field Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM) 1998

Book Chapters

• Very Fast Containment of Scanning Worms, Revisited N. Weaver, S. Staniford, and V. Paxson. From Malware Detection, edited by Mihai Christodorescu, Somesh Jha, Douglas Maughan, Dawn Song, and Cliff Wang, Published by Springer/Verlag Copyright 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-32720-4, Pages 113-145
• Chapter 18: Retiming, Repipelining, and C-Slow Retiming N. Weaver. From Reconfigurable Computing: The Theory and Practice of FPGA-Based Computing, edited by Scott Hauck and Andre DeHon, Published by Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier. Copyright 2007, ISBN 978-0123705228, Pages 383-400

Selected Publications for Lay Audiences

• Lawfare Media Contibutor’s Page

Tutorials

• Understanding and Adressing the Threat of Internet Worms V. Paxson, S. Savage, G. Voelker, and N. Weaver, USENIX Security Conference 2006
• The Worm and Virus Threat D. Ellis and N. Weaver. Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), December 2003 and December 2004

Professional Activities

• Program Co Chair: NPSec 2005
• Program Committe Member: Workshop on Economics and Computer Security 2025 Usenix Security 2016 Internet Measurement Conference 2015 Tellecomunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) 2012, 2013, 2014 Securing and Trusting Internet Names (SATIN) 2011, 2012 Network and Distributed Security Symposium (NDSS) 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Financial Crypto (FC) 2011 Communications and Computer Security (CCS) 2007, 2008 Cyber Security Experiment and Test (CSET) 2008 Field Programmable Logic (FPL) 2008 WWW Security Track 2008 ACNS 2008 CSAW 2007 Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) 2005

Classes Instructed

• Computer Science 36B (Object Oriented Programing), University of California at Davis: Fall 2024, Spring 2025
• Computer Science 158 (Programming Parallel Architectures), University of California at Davis: Spring 2025
• Computer Science 50 (Machine Dependent Programming), University of California at Davis: Spring 2024, Winter 2025
• Computer Science 142 (Compilers), University of California at Davis: Winter 2025
• Computer Science 32C (Data Structures in C), University of California at Davis: Fall 2024
• Computer Science 36C (Data Structures), University of California at Davis: Winter 2024
• Computer Science 32B (Data Structures), University of California at Davis: Fall 2023
• Computer Science 302 (Pedagogy), University of California at Berkeley: Spring 2023
• Computer Science 161 (Computer Security), University of California at Berkeley: Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022
• Computer Science 61C (Computer Architecture), University of California at Berkeley: Summer 1998, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 151 (Digital Design), University of California at Berkeley: Spring 2018
• Computer Science 194 (Special Topics in Networking), University of California at Berkeley: Spring 2017

Professional Experience

• International Computer Science Institute Graduate Student Researcher (September 2003 to October 2003), Postdoctoral/Staff Researcher (November 2003-present). Developing techniques to simulate, analyze, detect, and respond to worms, network attacks, network security, network measurement, and related issues.
• University of California at Davis Lecturer: Fall 2023-Spring 2025
• University of California at Berkeley Lecturer: Spring 2016-Spring-2023
• University of California at San Diego Visiting Researcher: Developing techniques to simulate, analyze, detect, and respond to worms, network attacks, network security, and related issues. January 2012-December 2013
• University of California at Berkeley Visiting Researcher: Developing techniques to simulate, analyze, detect, and respond to worms, network attacks, network security, and related issues. (January 2010 - December 2011, January 2014 - June 2015).
• Silicon Defense: Researcher: developing techniques to counter worms and other forms of widespread malicious code. (Summer 2002-February 2003)