In one of Luo’s most recent projects, he and a group of collaborators developed a way of detecting malware attacks against internet-connected devices, such as cameras, that don’t have enough memory for anti-virus software and other usual means of protection.

When viruses strike, they use power. The system that the team developed, DeepPower, watches for power usage patterns and uses deep learning to infer whether an attack is happening inside the device. They tried a prototype of DeepPower, using low-cost sensors and devices, to see how it would do against a real-world virus. They found that DeepPower was able to detect infection activities of different Internet-of-Things malware with high accuracy and without any changes to the monitored devices.

The team reported its findings in “DeepPower: Non-intrusive and Deep Learning-based Detection of IoT Malware Using Power Side Channels,” a paper published in Proceedings of the 15th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

Luo has also teamed up with collaborators to protect social media users, especially young ones, against cyberbullying. The team developed a mobile cyberbullying defense system, MCDefender, that can effectively detect and prevent cyberbullying on social media.

MCDefender uses pronunciation-based convolutional neural network architecture that pre-processes data. It allows the system to detect cyberbullying, even if messages contain misspellings or words that may not be offensive individually but carry a potentially hurtful message when strung together. When the system detects cyberbullying, the would-be cyberbully gets a message encouraging him or her to think twice before hitting send. If the message is sent anyway, notifications could be sent to parents and other authorities. Should the cyberbullying persist, the social media account of the person being cyberbullied could be blurred out so that no further harm could be inflicted.

The team reported its results in “MCDefender: Toward Effective Cyberbullying Defense in Mobile Online Social Networks,” a paper published in Proceedings of the 3rd ACM on International Workshop on Security And Privacy Analytics.

Looking to the future, Luo is working on systems that analyze photos and videos for signs of cyberbullying and search social media for hate speech.

“The advantage we have here at Clemson is that we have a good environment for collaborations,” Luo said. “We build interdisciplinary teams. That’s what AIRISE is all about. Together, we can compete for grants and conduct the most impactful research.” 

The privacy concerns that come with the lightning-fast immediacy and convenience of internet-connected life have become a central focus for Bart Knijnenburg, an assistant professor of human-centered computing at Clemson University.

It’s not practical for most people to simply go off the grid, totally disconnecting from all internet and social media activity, Knijnenburg said. But it is possible, he said, to find a trade-off between privacy and enjoying the benefits of online services.

Knijnenburg is helping find a middle way with research that merges privacy, artificial intelligence and recommender systems.

He has developed what he calls “user-tailored privacy” that works on the same idea that Netflix uses to figure out your viewing preferences and then recommend shows you might like. A tailored privacy system tries to find out what your privacy preferences are and then give you the settings that fit those preferences.

It helps offer alternatives to some common hurdles that users face when signing up for internet services. Many services ask users to agree to privacy policies that run several pages long, and many offer an overwhelming number of privacy settings.

“Companies are giving people outrageous options of sharing their information so they get biased toward sharing more,” Knijnenburg said. “It shows that people are not very capable of dealing with that deluge of privacy settings.”

In one study Knijnenburg led, he and his team showed participants more than 1,000 different ways a smart home could use and share data. Participants were asked if they would allow each scenario or not.

The team did data analysis on those decisions and then clustered people into different groups. The team ended up with a set of privacy profiles it could offer users.

“What we essentially did is we used machine learning to translate people’s privacy preferences into settings,” he said. “So rather than you having to figure out what your preferences are and then set every single setting manually, now what you have to do is figure out which kind of person are you and click one button and make one choice about those preferences. Then every setting in the system gets tweaked automatically based on that analysis we did.”

The resulting paper, “A Data-Driven Approach to Designing for Privacy in Household IoT,” was published in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems.

Part of what makes Knijnenburg optimistic about the future is that his work is being funded not only by government agencies, including the National Science Foundation, but also some of the companies that could use the technology he is developing.

“I think that gives an idea that many of them increasingly realize that the current situation is not a viable path forward,” he said. “In the end, people will vote with their feet.”

Knijnenburg outlined his research in a TEDx Talk at the University of California, Irvine. Hear about the solution in the full talk. 

Several postdoctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduates will participate in the research, providing them with experience on the cutting-edge of 3D printing technology. The principal investigator on the project is Srikanth Pilla, the Robert Patrick Jenkins Endowed Professor within the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences and founding director of the Clemson Composites Center.

Part of the challenge in 3D-printing new components is using the right feedstock – the material fed into the 3D printer to print the component. Researchers need to understand the combination of materials and what amounts will create the desired properties, such as strength or stiffness.

“As part of the new project, we will develop a database of raw materials, including metals, plastics and composite materials, that could then be used to train artificial intelligence and create digital models of potential new feedstock materials,” Pilla said.

To create the database, the researchers plan to print samples called coupons and subject them to a series of tests to measure their chemical, mechanical and thermophysical properties.

Researchers said the coupon testing will position them for more advanced studies in the future. In those studies, they would 3D-print subcomponents that take into account the complex geometries of full-size components.

“The database development as well as validation of the digital life cycle through experimental characterization and testing are enabled using the state-of-the-art infrastructure available at the Clemson Composites Center which includes 3D printers, thermophysical testing equipment, optical metrology, quasi-static and dynamic drop-tower test infrastructure, accelerated aging equipment, high-speed cameras and spectroscopic equipment,” Pilla said.

Clemson is excited to pursue another collaborative opportunity with ARL called the M^X Initiative, Pilla said. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team of Clemson faculty members from materials science, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, computer science and the Clemson Composites Center, to conduct fundamental and applied research in support of U.S. Army modernization and future capabilities.

Jose Doval, advanced R&D director at 3D Systems, said he looks forward to collaborating with the team to further expand the applications addressed with the company’s advanced metal 3D printing technologies.

“3D Systems was founded on a spirit of innovation, and our customers’ unique applications fuel our efforts to create new technologies,” Doval said. “Through our collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, we’ve made tremendous strides in developing the world’s largest, fastest metal powder 3D printer. Expanding this work with Clemson University allows us to push the limits of the technology even further. This includes investigating new methods of in-situ detection, as well as ways to visualize the build in real-time from the data collected in each layer.”

Stephanie Koch, associate director for DEVCOM ARL’s Weapons and Materials Research Directorate, said, “This collaboration will advance the laboratory’s ability to find new and novel ways to advance the science of advanced manufacturing as well as creating a pipeline of new talent, all towards our mission to operationalize science for transformational overmatch.”

More than 30 years ago, 3D Systems brought the innovation of 3D printing to the manufacturing industry. Today, as the leading Additive Manufacturing solutions partner, we bring innovation, performance, and reliability to every interaction – empowering our customers to create products and business models never before possible. Thanks to our unique offering of hardware, software, materials, and services, each application-specific solution is powered by the expertise of our application engineers who collaborate with customers to transform how they deliver their products and services. 3D Systems’ solutions address a variety of advanced applications in Healthcare and Industrial markets such as Medical and Dental, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, and Durable Goods. More information on the company is available at www.3dsystems.com.

DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. As the Army’s corporate research laboratory, ARL is operationalizing science to achieve transformational overmatch. Through collaboration across the command’s core technical competencies, DEVCOM leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more successful at winning the nation’s wars and come home safely. DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of the Army Futures Command.