Publications

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[By year][By topic]

Secure and privacy-preserving machine learning and data mining

Code and data are available [here]

• Minghong Fang*, Xiaoyu Cao*, Jinyuan Jia, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Local Model Poisoning Attacks to Byzantine-Robust Federated Learning". In USENIX Security Symposium, 2020. *Equal contribution
• Jinyuan Jia, Ahmed Salem, Michael Backes, Yang Zhang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "MemGuard: Defending against Black-Box Membership Inference Attacks via Adversarial Examples". In ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 149/933= 16.0%.
• Binghui Wang and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Attacking Graph-based Classification via Manipulating the Graph Structure". In ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 149/933= 16.0%.
• Jinyuan Jia and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Calibrate: Frequency Estimation and Heavy Hitter Identification with Local Differential Privacy via Incorporating Prior Knowledge". In IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2019. Acceptance rate: 288/1464= 19.7%. 

• Minghong Fang, Guolei Yang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Jia Liu. "Poisoning Attacks to Graph-Based Recommender Systems". In Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2018. Acceptance rate: 60/299= 20.1%.

• Jinyuan Jia and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "AttriGuard: A Practical Defense Against Attribute Inference Attacks via Adversarial Machine Learning". In USENIX Security Symposium, 2018. Acceptance rate: 100/524= 19.1%.

• Binghui Wang and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Stealing Hyperparameters in Machine Learning". In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2018. Acceptance rate: 63/549= 11.5%.

• Xiaoyu Cao and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Mitigating Evasion Attacks to Deep Neural Networks via Region-based Classification". In Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2017. Acceptance rate: 48/244=19.7%.

• Guolei Yang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Ying Cai. "Fake Co-visitation Injection Attacks to Recommender Systems". In ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2017. Acceptance rate: 68/423=16.1%.

• Bin Liu, Deguang Kong, Lei Cen, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Hongxia Jin, and Hui Xiong. "Personalized Mobile App Recommendation: Reconciling App Functionality and User Privacy Preference. In ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM), 2015. Acceptance rate: 40/238=16.8%.

Social networks and web privacy: de-anonymization, attribute privacy, link privacy, etc.

Code and data are available [here]

• Jinyuan Jia and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Calibrate: Frequency Estimation and Heavy Hitter Identification with Local Differential Privacy via Incorporating Prior Knowledge". In IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2019. Acceptance rate: 288/1464= 19.7%. 

• Binghui Wang, Jinyuan Jia, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Graph-based Security and Privacy Analytics via Collective Classification with Joint Weight Learning and Propagation". In ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 89/521= 17.1%. Distinguished Paper Award Honorable Mention 

• Jinyuan Jia and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "AttriGuard: A Practical Defense Against Attribute Inference Attacks via Adversarial Machine Learning". In USENIX Security Symposium, 2018. Acceptance rate: 100/524= 19.1%.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong and Bin Liu. "Attribute Inference Attacks in Online Social Networks". ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), 21(1), 2018.

• Jinyuan Jia, Binghui Wang, Le Zhang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "AttriInfer: Inferring User Attributes in Online Social Networks Using Markov Random Fields. In International World Wide Web Conference (WWW), 2017. Acceptance rate: 164/966=17.0%.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong and Bin Liu. "You are Who You Know and How You Behave: Attribute Inference Attacks via Users' Social Friends and Behaviors". In USENIX Security Symposium, 2016. Acceptance rate: 72/463=15.6%.

• Shouling Ji, Weiqing Li, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Prateek Mittal, and Raheem Beyah. "Seed-based De-anonymizability Quantification of Social Networks". IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 11(7), 2016.

• Shouling Ji, Weiqing Li, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Prateek Mittal, and Raheem Beyah. "On Your Social Network De-anonymizablity: Quantification and Large Scale Evaluation with Seed Knowledge". In ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2015. Acceptance rate: 51/302=16.9%.

• Mathias Payer, Ling Huang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Kevin Borgolte, and Mario Frank. "What You Submit is Who You Are: A Multi-Modal Approach for Deanonymizing Scientific Publications". IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 10(1), 2015.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Ameet Talwalkar, Lester Mackey, Ling Huang, Richard Shin, Emil Stefanov, Elaine Shi, and Dawn Song. "Joint Link Prediction and Attribute Inference using a Social-Attribute Network". ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), 5(2), 2014.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Ameet Talwalkar, Lester Mackey, Ling Huang, Richard Shin, Emil Stefanov, Elaine Shi, and Dawn Song. "Jointly Predicting Links and Inferring Attributes using a Social-Attribute Network (SAN)". In ACM Workshop on Social Network Mining and Analysis (SNA-KDD), co-located with KDD, 2012.

• Arvind Narayanan, Hristo Paskov, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, John Bethencourt, Richard Shin, Emil Stefanov, and Dawn Song. "On the Feasibility of Internet-Scale Author Identification". In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2012. Acceptance rate: 40/307=13.0%.

Detecting fake accounts, compromised accounts, and spammers in social networks and web applications

Code and data are available [here]

• Dong Yuan, Yuanli Miao, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Zheng Yang, Qi Li, Dawn Song, Qian Wang, and Xiao Liang. "Detecting Fake Accounts in Online Social Networks at the Time of Registrations". In ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 149/933= 16.0%. 
  

• Zenghua Xia, Chang Liu, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Qi Li, Yong Cui, and Dawn Song. "Characterizing and Detecting Malicious Accounts in Privacy-Centric Mobile Social Networks: A Case Study". In ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), Applied Data Science Track, 2019. Acceptance rate: ~145/700= 20.7%. 

• Binghui Wang, Jinyuan Jia, Le Zhang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Structure-based Sybil Detection in Social Networks via Local Rule-based Propagation". IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering (TNSE), 6(3), 2019.

• Binghui Wang, Jinyuan Jia, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Graph-based Security and Privacy Analytics via Collective Classification with Joint Weight Learning and Propagation". In ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 89/521= 17.1%. Distinguished Paper Award Honorable Mention

• Binghui Wang, Le Zhang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "SybilBlind: Detecting Fake Users in Online Social Networks without Manual Labels". In International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), 2018. Acceptance rate: 33/145= 22.8%.

• Peng Gao, Binghui Wang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Kurt Thomas, and Prateek Mittal. "SybilFuse: Combining Local Attributes with Global Structure to Perform Robust Sybil Detection." In IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 2018. Acceptance rate: 51/181 = 28.2%.

• Binghui Wang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Hao Fu. "GANG: Detecting Fraudulent Users in Online Social Networks via Guilt-by-Association on Directed Graphs". In IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), regular paper, 2017. Acceptance rate: 72/778=9.25%.

• Hao Fu, Xing Xie, Yong Rui, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Guangzhong Sun, and Enhong Chen. "Robust Spammer Detection in Microblogs: Leveraging User Carefulness". ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), 8(6), 2017.

• Jinyuan Jia, Binghui Wang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Random Walk based Fake Account Detection in Online Social Networks". In IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2017. Acceptance rate: 49/220=22.3%.

• Binghui Wang, Le Zhang, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "SybilSCAR: Sybil Detection in Online Social Networks via Local Rule based Propagation". In IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2017. Acceptance rate: 292/1395=20.9%. Fast tracked to IEEE TNSE. 

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Mario Frank, and Prateek Mittal. "SybilBelief: A Semi-supervised Learning Approach for Structure-based Sybil Detection". IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 9(6), 2014.

Mobile forensics

• Chris Chao-Chun, Chen Shi, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Yong Guan. "EviHunter: Identifying Digital Evidence in the Permanent Storage of Android Devices via Static Analysis". In ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2018. Acceptance rate: 134/809= 16.6%.

• Zhen Xu, Chen Shi, Chris Chao-Chun Cheng, Neil Zhengqiang Gong, and Yong Guan. "A Dynamic Taint Analysis Tool for Android App Forensics. In International Workshop on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering (SADFE), 2018. Best Paper Award

User authentication

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Altay Ozen, Yu Wu, Xiaoyu Cao, Richard Shin, Dawn Song, Hongxia Jin, and Xuan Bao. "PIANO: Proximity-based User Authentication on Voice-Powered Internet-of-Things Devices." In IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), short paper, 2017. Acceptance rate: (90 + a small number of short papers)/531=?

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Mathias Payer, Reza Moazzezi, and Mario Frank. "Forgery-Resistant Touch-based Authentication on Mobile Devices". In ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2016. Acceptance rate: 73/350=20.9% for full papers.

• Sakshi Jain, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Sreya Basuroy, Juan Lang, Dawn Song, and Prateek Mittal. "New Directions in Social Authentication". In Workshop on Usable Security (USEC), co-located with NDSS, 2015.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong and Di Wang. "On the Security of Trustee-based Social Authentications". IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 9(8), 2014. Featured in VentureBeat.

Social network measurement and modeling

Dataset is available [here]

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong and Wenchang Xu. "Reciprocal versus Parasocial Relationships in Online Social Networks". Springer Social Network Analysis and Mining (SNAM), 4(1), 2014.

• Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Wenchang Xu, Ling Huang, Prateek Mittal, Emil Stefanov, Vyas Sekar, and Dawn Song. "Evolution of Social-Attribute Networks: Measurements, Modeling, and Implications using Google+". ACM/USENIX Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), 2012. Acceptance rate: 45/183=24.6%.

Recommender systems

• Minghong Fang, Guolei Yang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Jia Liu. "Poisoning Attacks to Graph-Based Recommender Systems". In Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2018. Acceptance rate: 60/299= 20.1%.

• Guolei Yang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, and Ying Cai. "Fake Co-visitation Injection Attacks to Recommender Systems". In ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2017. Acceptance rate: 68/423=16.1%.

• Bin Liu, Yao Wu, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Junjie Wu, Hui Xiong, and Martin Ester. "Structural Analysis of User Choices for Mobile App Recommendation". ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data (TKDD), 11(2), 2016.

• Bin Liu, Deguang Kong, Lei Cen, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Hongxia Jin, and Hui Xiong. "Personalized Mobile App Recommendation: Reconciling App Functionality and User Privacy Preference. In ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM), 2015. Acceptance rate: 40/238=16.8%.

Computational neuroscience

• Zhenqiang Gong, Nick Matzke, Bard Ermentrout, Dawn Song, Jann E. Vendetti, Montgomery Slatkin, and George Oster. "The evolution of patterns on Conus shells". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 109(5), 2012.

Database query processing (work done during my undergraduate study)

• Dongqu Chen, Guang-Zhong Sun, and Neil Zhenqiang Gong. "Efficient Approximate Top-k Query Algorithm Using Cube Index". In Asia-Pacific Web Conference (APWeb), 2011.

• Zhenqiang Gong. "Parallel Algorithms for Top-k Query Processing". ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), poster, 2010.

• Zhenqiang Gong, Guangzhong Sun, and Xing Xie. "Protecting Privacy in Location-based Services Using K-anonymity without Cloaked Region". In IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management (MDM) Workshops, 2010.

• Zhenqiang Gong, Guangzhong Sun, Jing Yuan, and Yanjing Zhong. "Efficient Top-k Query Algorithms Using K-Skyband Partition". In International ICST Conference on Scalable Information Systems (INFOSCALE), 2009.