Norma Saiph Savage, Eber Betanzos
West Virginia University, West Virginia, United States
Keywords: social media, social computing, crowdsourcing, radicalization, counter-attacks, big data
In social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, citizens leavedigital footprints. Personal identification data posted on social media can be formulated as a “soft” biometrics problem because like a person’s age or gender, a citizen's digital footprint is not unique but contains valuable information for personal identification in the cyberspace. In my research I design original probabilistic graphical models combined with crowdsourcing to characterize the online behavior of citizens and collect “soft” biometrics information that facilitates personal identification. I then use these digital traits to create novel cyber-crowdsourcing system capable of automatically discovering suspicious social media activity and alert law enforcement. Related, I have also designed systems to counter-attack radicalization. Here I have focused on designing novel cybersecurity systems that mix crowds of volunteers, visualizations and machines to diminish and combat online radicalization. I am currently an assistant professor of Computer Science at West Virginia University (WVU) where I direct the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCI @ WVU Lab). My research lab focuses on designing novel interfaces to combat cyber-crimes. More specifically, my research in Social Computing and Crowdsourcing focuses on the design of systems that spark better coordination of volunteers and empower communities to fight radicalization and cyber-wars.