CSE Colloquium: Phillip G. Bradford

Path Problems applied to Computer Security and Cryptography

Abstract:

Labeled paths in directed graphs have many applications. The graph edges are labeled with terminals of context free grammars. This talk presents some new results for labeled paths in digraphs with balanced parenthesis grammars. The focus is on using a basic variation of Nykanan and Ukkonen’s exact path problem to get more efficient shortest paths. Applications to model-based intrusion detection are reviewed. Next the quickest path problem is discussed for labeled digraphs. The quickest path problem accounts for network bandwidth and speed while finding shortest labeled paths. A dynamic programming solution is given for the quickest path problem on labeled digraphs. Applications to cryptographic protocols are outlined.

Bio:

Phillip G. Bradford is a Computer Scientist with extensive experience in academia and industry. Phil was a post-doctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, he earned his PhD at Indiana University, an MS form the University of Kansas, and a BA from Rutgers University. He was on the faculty at Rutgers Business School and the University of Alabama in the School of Engineering. He has worked for BlackRock, Reuters Analytics, founded a firm and both consulted and worked with a number of early stage firms. Currently he works for GE Asset Management.