Ethan Heilman
Research Fellow @ Boston University
https://github.com/EthanHeilman
March 31, 2016
Ethan.R.Heilman@gmail.com
http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/
Education
•
Bridgewater State University
B.S. Computer Science
Bridgewater, Ma
2007
Research Experience
•
Boston University
Research Fellow
Boston, Ma
2013 - present
Accomplishments:
• Network Security (Bitcoin): Developed and implemented practical attacks/defenses on
Bitcoin’s P2P networking protocol including working proof-of-concepts. Several of our defenses
have been deployed and are currently protecting 80% of the full-nodes in the Bitcoin network.
• Cryptanalysis (Spectral Hash): Broke Spectral Hash, a SHA3 contestant, using group theory
to force collisions within its internal state. I showed that my attack extended to variants of Spectral
Hash that are given access to random oracles.
• Differential Resistance (MD6): Proved the differential resistance of the cryptographic hash
function MD6 by reasoning about computational tradeoffs between types of differential patterns.
My work showed that MD6 had double the security margin previously believed.
• Software Engineering (GIS): Designed and built an Automatic Vehicle Location system (sole
engineer on the prototype). It is currently used by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority
(CCRTA) and the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA). At the time it was
developed, the system was unmatched in terms of both lowcost, and spacial and temporal
resolution. Development and deployment of the system was funded by state and federal grants.
• Security (Google vulnerability): Found a security vulnerability in Google’s ad platform
(DFP), made Google Security Honorable Mention list.
Industry Experience
–
Pubget Inc
Bost, Ma
Senior Software Engineer
2011 - 2013
∗ Helped design and grow Pubget from startup to acquisition, helping more than 5 million
researchers and 500 research institutions.
∗ Designed and built content import and ingestion system that handled over 30 million
academic articles from several content sources in many formats.
∗ Built a ”DFP on steroids” system that replicated the functionality of Google Adwords
using DFP and a combination of custom javascript code. Dramatically increasing CTR.
∗ Designed and built an authentication web service so that one of the world’s leading life
science companies could use a Javascript client to interface securely with Pubget’s data.
Used by 10k users a day.
∗ Built the backend for an Academic Publication analytics system, known as ”What’s Hot
in Science”.
Broad Institute
Cambridge, Ma
Software Engineer
2008 - 2011
∗ Built tools for researchers to collaborate and share data.
∗ Built web services and feeds that were consumed by both users and clients.
∗ Built and automated data publication and management workflows.
∗ Worked with and built data analysis pipelines: tBLASTn, Markov Clustering MCL, and
sequence assembly.
Jumptap Inc
Cambridge, Ma
Software Engineer
2007 - 2008
∗ Developed high quality, efficient, production code for a search engine start up.
∗ Developed and maintained content ingestion xml feed parsers for feeds over 80 GB.
∗ Created Purchase reporting web api, from early design specifications to full
implementation.
∗ Rebuilt postal code processor, decreasing running time by a factor of forty.
Publications
1. 2016, Blindly Signed Contracts: Anonymous On-Blockchain and Off-Blockchain
Bitcoin Transactions, 3rd Workshop on Bitcoin and Blockchain Research at 20th
International Conference of Financial Cryptography, E. Heilman, F. Baldimtsi, S. Goldberg
2. 2015, Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoins Peer-to-Peer Network, USENIX Security’15, E.
Heilman, A. Kendler, A. Zohar, S. Goldberg
3. 2014, From the Consent of the Routed: Improving the Transparency of the RPKI,
SIGCOMM’14, E. Heilman, D. Cooper, L. Reyzin and S. Goldberg
4. 2014, One Weird Trick to Stop Selfish Miners: Fresh Bitcoins, A Solution for the
Honest Miner., E Heilman, Poster at FC’14
5. 2013, On the risk of misbehaving RPKI authorities, Proceedings of the Twelfth ACM
Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks, D Cooper, E Heilman, K Brogle, L Reyzin, S Goldberg
6. 2011, Restoring the Differential Resistance of MD6’, EuroCrypt II Hash
Workshop, E. Heilman
7. 2009 Attacks Against PermuteTransformXor Compression Functions and Spectral
Hash Collisions, NIST mailing list, Cryptology ePrint Archive Report, E. Heilman
8. 2007, Poster: Developing lowcost AVL and Web Mapping for RealTime
Intermodal Customer Information Using a GPS Cell Phones and Google Maps , U
Shama, L Harman, E Heilman, J Baltikauskas
9. 2006, Metrowest Suburban Mobility Research, Development and Technology
Project, Office of Transportation Planning, Executive Oce Of Transportation, Draft., E.
Heilman, U. Shama and L. Harman
Recent Awards, Grants & Honors
IETF Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP) . .
MIT Bitcoin Evangelism Award. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Financial Crypto’14 Travel Grant . . . . . . . . . . . .
Google Security Honorable Mention . . . . . . . . . . .
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