Hu and Zhao receive Test of Time Award

By Elizabeth Egan 

The ACM’s SACMAT is the premier conference for the presentation of research results and experience reports on leading-edge issues of access control, including models, systems, applications, and theory. The Test of Time Award is given to a paper published 10 years prior that has significantly impacted academia and industry. The recipient is selected by a committee based on factors such as citations and product impact of the paper.

Hu served as the lead author of the paper, published by the ACM in 2014, along with Zhao and additional co-authors, Gail-Joon Ahn, a professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University, and Dejun Yang, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines.

"I am honored that the paper I presented a decade ago at the 19th ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies has been awarded the Test of Time Award,” said Hu. “As the lead author, this paper was the culmination of my PhD studies, and I am thrilled that it is being celebrated for its lasting influence."

Their work explored the issue of online social networks being unable enforce privacy concerns in data associated with multiple users. The paper proposes a multiparty control model that includes a systematic approach to identify and resolve the conflicts for collaborative data sharing in online social networks.

They also took their research a step further to study the strategic behavior of rational controllers in multiparty access control, who aim to maximize their benefits by adjusting their privacy settings in collaborative data sharing with social networks. They used both numerical analysis and user studies to explore the interactions of controllers in the multiparty control game.

Hu's research spans security, machine learning, and networking. He has contributed to numerous university-wide, interdisciplinary projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Hu is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and the Amazon Research Award. He has authored over 150 refereed technical papers, five of which have received Best Paper Awards.

Hu joined the University at Buffalo as an associate professor, having previously served as an associate professor in the School of Computing and director of the Cybersecurity Center at Clemson University.

Zhao’s research interests include computer architecture and hardware, computer security, cryptography and mobile computing. He also earned his PhD in computer science at Arizona State University, and he earned his master’s degree and bachelor’s degree at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.