Ben Kaiser

Tech policy, disinformation and information security researcher

bkaiser@princeton.edu:/bio$

I’m a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Princeton University, advised by Jonathan Mayer in the Center for Information Technology Policy.

I’ve spent ten years conducting security and technology policy research across academia, industry, and an FFRDC. My current research focus is on measuring the societal impact of technology while preserving individual privacy.

Outside of research, I love to teach and mentor. I’ve taught computing and security basics to students of all ages through CodeCreative, LLCipher, and RPISEC, among other groups. At Princeton, I TA’d COS 448 and COS 217.

In my spare time, I like to bike, play tennis, read science fiction, and make craft cocktails.

/bio/education$

PhD in Computer Science, in progress

Princeton University
MS in Computer Science, 2015

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
BS in Computer Science, 2015

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Peer-Reviewed Papers

Timothy Braje, Alice Lee, Andrew Wagner, Ben Kaiser, Daniel Park, Martine Kalke, Robert Cunningham, Adam Chlipala (2022). Adversary Safety by Construction in a Language of Cryptographic Protocols. In IEEE CSF 2022.

PDF

Ben Kaiser, Jerry Wei, Eli Lucherini, Kevin Lee, J. Nathan Matias, Jonathan Mayer (2020). Adapting Security Warnings to Counter Online Disinformation. In USENIX SEC 2021.

PDF Video

Austin Hounsel, Jordan Holland, Ben Kaiser, Kevin Borgolte, Nick Feamster, Jonathan Mayer (2020). Identifying Disinformation Websites Using Infrastructure Features. In USENIX FOCI 2020.

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Kevin Lee, Ben Kaiser, Jonathan Mayer, Arvind Narayanan (2020). An Empirical Study of Wireless Carrier Authentication for SIM Swaps. In USENIX SOUPS 2020.

PDF Dataset Project website Slides Video

Scott Ruoti, Ben Kaiser, Arkady Yerukhimovich, Jeremy Clark, Robert Cunningham (2019). Blockchain Technology: What Is It Good For?. In ACM QUEUE 17 (5).

PDF Full paper

Jeremy Blackthorne, Ben Kaiser, Benjamin Fuller, Bülent Yener (2017). Environmental Authentication in Malware. In LATINCRYPT 2017.

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Jeremy Blackthorne, Ben Kaiser, Bülent Yener (2016). A Formal Framework for Environmentally Sensitive Malware. In RAID 2016.

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Vijay Gadepally, Braden Hancock, Ben Kaiser, Jeremy Kepner, Pete Michaleas, Mayank Varia, Arkady Yerukhimovich (2015). Computing on Masked Data to improve the security of big data. In IEEE HST 2015.

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Invited Talks and Other Published Work

It's the Algorithm: A Large-Scale Comparative Field Study of Misinformation Interventions

Work in progress. Presented at the Knight Institute Symposium on Algorithmic Amplification in April 2023.

Ben Kaiser, Jonathan Mayer

Slides

Rally and WebScience: A Platform and Toolkit for Browser-Based Research on Technology and Society Problems

Published November 4, 2022 on arXiv. In submission.

Anne Kohlbrenner, Ben Kaiser, Kartikeya Kandula, Rebecca Weiss, Jonathan Mayer, Ted Han, Robert Helmer

PDF Code

Warnings That Work: Combating Misinformation Without Deplatforming

Published July 23, 2021 on Lawfare.

Ben Kaiser, Jonathan Mayer, J. Nathan Matias

Article Podcast

Vulnerability Reporting is Dysfunctional

Published March 25, 2020 on Freedom to Tinker.

Kevin Lee, Ben Kaiser, Jonathan Mayer, Arvind Narayanan

Article

The Looming Threat of China: An Analysis of Chinese Influence on Bitcoin

Published October 5, 2018 on arXiv. Presented at CESC 2018.

Ben Kaiser, Mireya Jurado, G. Alex Ledger

Preprint Code Slides Video