NeTS: RUI: Privacy by Design: Enabling Strong Privacy Guarantees with Open-Access Network Data

NSF Award Search · 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT · $248,362 · view on nsf.gov ↗

Abstract

Important decisions about the Internet depend on data about the networks that help connect to everyday lives. However, these data are difficult to share privately and securely. Network and service providers are now able to collect records of how devices connect to wireless networks and how Internet traffic flows through their systems. These records can reveal how services are used by users. Sharing such data would help researchers and engineers make networks faster, more reliable, and fairer, but releasing them directly would put individual privacy at risk. This project develops mathematically rigorous privacy preserving techniques, so that network operators can share useful versions of their data without exposing sensitive information about any single person or organization. The project designs and analyzes a suite of differentially private mechanisms tailored to three canonical network data sharing scenarios. The first thrust focuses on single network providers that wish to share fine-grained workload traces with edge computing services while protecting individual users. The second thrust develops methods for releasing sequential mobility traces, such as device movements across campus wireless access points, using machine learning models combined with formally calibrated noise. The third thrust targets collaborative settings in which multiple Internet service providers may jointly compute statistics, such as heavy hitter IP prefixes and intersection counts, without revealing their own raw traffic or identifiers. Across these thrusts, the project plans to develop end-to-end algorithms, to address formal privacy guarantees, and to conduct empirical evaluations on real network datasets. The broader impacts of this project span education, open science, and technology transfer to the networking community. The work integrates privacy-preserving data analysis into undergraduate courses and year-long research experiences. The project releases open-source code, synt

Key facts

NSF award ID
2553435
Awardee
Swarthmore College (PA)
SAM.gov UEI
KPALJZQMJAX6
PI
Vasanta Chaganti
Primary program
01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
All programs
RES IN NETWORKING TECH & SYS, WOMEN, MINORITY, DISABLED, NEC
Estimated total
$248,362
Funds obligated
$248,362
Transaction type
Standard Grant
Period
06/01/2026 → 05/31/2029