Toward Trustworthy Smart Environments: Detecting Hidden Webcams using Cyber-Physical Correlations

11:00 April 22 2024, WWH 335 Security and privacy are critical for building reliable and trustworthy smart environments. This talk discusses my recent work in building secure smart spaces with a focus on privacy. Specifically, small, low-cost, wireless cameras are becoming increasingly commonplace making surreptitious observation of people more difficult to detect. Previous work in detecting hidden cameras has only addressed limited environments in small spaces where the user has significant control of the environment. To address this problem in a less constrained scope of environments, we introduce several methods of detecting hidden cameras based on correlations between the digital and physical worlds including methods that work against an attacker who is capable of delaying when the video is sent. This approach results in F1 scores of 0.997 for detecting live streaming and 0.989 for streaming delayed by 30 seconds. From these results, we conclude that our work removes significant limitations that exist in previous detection methods. This talk will conclude with future research directions in secure smart environments based on recent preliminary results .

Bio: Brent Lagesse is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington Bothell. His work focuses on the intersection of security, mobile systems, and machine learning. He has published nearly 40 peer-reviewed papers on these topics and secured over $1.5 million in external research funding for his work. He was a Cybersecurity Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cambridge in 2018 and the Johann-von-Spix International Guest Professor at the University of Bamberg in 2019- 20. Prior to coming to UW Bothell, he held positions as a research scientist in the cybersecurity research groups at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and BBN Technologies.