Vivek Nair

Vivek C. Nair, Ph.D.

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I am passionate about defending our digital world and have spent over a decade researching applied cryptographic techniques to secure critical systems. I previously served as a Technical Lead within elite cyber units of the US government, where I received the Exceptional Performance Award for advancing the frontiers of US cyber operations. I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at UC Berkeley at the age of 22, supported by prestigious fellowships from the NSF, the NPSC, and the Hertz Foundation.

Google Certified Cybersecurity
Amazon Web Services Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Microsoft Certified Azure Fundamentals
Microsoft Certified Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals
Microsoft Certified Azure Data Fundamentals
Microsoft Certified Azure AI Fundamentals
Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate
Microsoft Certified Azure Security Engineer Associate
CompTIA Certified Tech+
CompTIA Certified A+
CompTIA Certified Network+
CompTIA Certified Security+
CompTIA Certified CySA+
CompTIA Certified PenTest+
CompTIA Certified SecurityX
CompTIA Certified IT Operations Specialist (CIOS)
CompTIA Certified Secure Infrastructure Specialist (CSIS)
CompTIA Certified Security Analytics Professional (CSAP)
CompTIA Certified Network Vulnerability Assessment Professional (CNVP)
CompTIA Certified Network Security Professional (CNSP)
CompTIA Certified Security Analytics Expert (CSAE)
CompTIA Certified Secure Infrastructure Expert (CSIE)

  Washington, D.C.   —    [email protected]   —    Schedule a meeting  

Publications

Exploring the Privacy Risks of Adversarial VR Game Design

Vivek Nair, Gonzalo Munilla Garrido, Dawn Song, and James F. O'Brien

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2022. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2023. [View] [PDF] [Video]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Multi-Factor Key Derivation Function (MFKDF) for Fast, Flexible, Secure, & Practical Key Management

Vivek Nair and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in USENIX Security Symposium, 2023. [View] [PDF] [Video]

  3. USENIX Security '23 Distinguished Artifact Award

Learn more at mfkdf.com 

Unique Identification of 50,000+ Virtual Reality Users from Head & Hand Motion Data

Vivek Nair, Wenbo Guo, Justus Mattern, Rui Wang, James F. O'Brien, Louis Rosenberg, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in USENIX Security Symposium, 2023. [View] [PDF] [Video]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Decentralizing Custodial Wallets with MFKDF

Vivek Nair and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), 2023. [View]

Learn more at mfkdf.com 

MEVade: An MEV-Resistant Blockchain Design

Julien Piet, Vivek Nair, and Sanjay Subramanian

  1. Published in IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), 2023. [View]

Multi-Factor Credential Hashing for Asymmetric Brute-Force Attack Resistance

Vivek Nair and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P), 2023. [View]

Learn more at mfchf.com 

Going Incognito in the Metaverse: Achieving Theoretically Optimal Privacy-Usability Tradeoffs in VR

Vivek Nair, Gonzalo M. Garrido, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 2023. [View] [PDF] [Video]

  3. UIST '23 Best Paper Award

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

SoK: Data Privacy in Virtual Reality

Gonzalo M. Garrido, Vivek Nair, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2024. [View] [PDF]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Truth in Motion: The Unprecedented Risks and Opportunities of Extended Reality Motion Data

Vivek Nair, Louis Rosenberg, James F. O'Brien, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE Security & Privacy (S&P), 2024. [View] [PDF]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

ProtoBlocks: Programming Language for Secure Implementation of Cryptographic Protocols

Vivek Nair, William Mullen, and Ethan Lee

  1. Preprint in Berkeley Technical Reports, 2023. [PDF]

MFDPG: Multi-Factor Authenticated Password Management With Zero Stored Secrets

Vivek Nair and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

Effect of Duration and Delay on the Identifiability of VR Motion

Mark Roman Miller, Vivek Nair, Eugy Han, Cyan DeVeaux, Christian Rack, Rui Wang, Brandon Huang, Marc Erich Latoschik, James F. O'Brien, and Jeremy N. Bailenson

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2024. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE WoWMoM, 2024. [View]

Effect of Data Degradation on Motion Re-Identification

Vivek Nair, Mark Roman Miller, Rui Wang, Brandon Huang, Christian Rack, Marc Erich Latoschik, and James F. O'Brien

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2024. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE WoWMoM, 2024. [View]

Fast Anonymous Consensus and Private Authentication in Large Distributed Systems

Vivek Nair and Bolton Bailey

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023.

Results of the 2023 Census of Beat Saber Users

Vivek Nair, Viktor Radulov, and James F. O'Brien

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Custodial!”: Usable Trustless Decentralized Key Management

Tanusree Sharma, Vivek C. Nair, Henry Wang, Yang Wang, and Dawn Song

  1. Published in CHI, 2024. [View] [PDF] [Video]

Inferring Private Personal Attributes of Virtual Reality Users

Vivek Nair, Christian Rack, Wenbo Guo, Rui Wang, Shuixian Li, Brandon Huang, Atticus Cull, James F. O'Brien, Marc Latoschik, and Louis Rosenberg

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2023. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE VRW, 2024. [View]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Open Extended Reality Recordings 2023 (BOXRR-23)

Vivek Nair, Wenbo Guo, Rui Wang, James F. O'Brien, Louis Rosenberg, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2024. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2024. [View]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Deep Motion Masking for Secure, Usable, and Scalable Real-Time Anonymization of Ecological Virtual Reality Motion Data

Vivek Nair, Wenbo Guo, James F. O'Brien, Louis Rosenberg, and Dawn Song

  1. Preprint in arXiv, 2024. [View] [PDF]

  2. Published in IEEE VRW, 2024. [View]

Learn more at rdi.berkeley.edu 

Navigating the Kinematic Maze: Analyzing, Standardizing and Unifying XR Motion Datasets

Christian Rack, Vivek Nair, Lukas Schach, Felix Foschum, Marcel Roth, and Marc Erich Latoschik

  1. Published in IEEE VRW, 2024. [View]