Cybersecurity Institute Hackathon Focuses on Tools to Fight Child Abuse Online
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On October 25, researchers from the UMass Amherst Rescue Lab joined cybersecurity industry professionals from the Massachusetts-based nonprofit MITRE for the Cybersecurity Institute Hackathon with the goal of developing tools to help law enforcement fight the exploitation of children online.
In just eight hours, the group, including over thirty Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences graduate students, worked in small teams to sift through information from nefarious internet sites and collect actionable data that could expedite legal cases against trafficking suspects. Projects included developing tools for scraping content from apps and the web, labeling content, and machine learning techniques that consider text and images against app store age rating criteria.
“Working alongside industry experts from MITRE allowed our students to gain invaluable insights and practical experience, bridging the gap between academic theory and real-world application,” says Brian Levine, distinguished professor, director of the Cybersecurity Institute, and host of this year’s hackathon. “Additionally, the goal of the hackathon was to advance our efforts to create an open-source application that increases the availability and responsible use of advanced machine learning techniques by investigators of crimes against children.”
Now in its second year, the hackathon was originally conceived by Levine along with MITRE's Adam Hammond, manager of cyber operations, and alumnus Nick Merlino ‘18BS ‘20MS, senior software engineer, who worked closely with Levine during his time at UMass."UMass has been an amazing partner,” says Hammond. “They’ve helped provide the tools, the space, and the project. I’m excited to be back.”
The Cybersecurity Institute is housed in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences and serves as the multi-disciplinary home for security research and education at UMass Amherst. Affiliated researchers and faculty lead projects and courses that help increase privacy and protect personal information, thwart the exploitation of the vulnerable, and increase access to the Internet. A core initiative of the Cybersecurity Institute, the UMass Amherst Rescue Lab is the premier computer science research group working to protect children from Internet-based victimization. The lab's research and novel forensic methods are used by investigators in every U.S. state and in many countries around the world.