Adversarial information ecosystems
Influence operations, misinformation, coordinated manipulation, and platform-scale auditing.
CaSPR Lab · Florida International University
Bogdan Carbunar
Associate Professor, Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences
I study how information control, online manipulation, and security threats emerge across sociotechnical systems. My group builds systems and measurement methods that detect coordinated manipulation, characterize censorship and misinformation environments, explain risks to users, and support protective action.
Research identity
Security and privacy research for adversarial information environments
At CaSPR, we combine AI, applied cryptography, systems engineering, and user studies to build practical defenses that strengthen user autonomy, privacy, and security. Our work spans influence operations, censorship resistance, plausibly deniable storage, fraud and abuse detection, and human-centered security tools.
Research themes
What we work on
Censorship resistance and plausible deniability
Systems that help users access information, protect sensitive data, and survive coercive inspection.
Online fraud and abuse
Measurement and defenses for app-market fraud, search-rank manipulation, deceptive promotion, and social-network abuse.
Human-centered security and privacy
User studies, authentication, liveness verification, privacy-preserving systems, and protective interface design.
Selected projects
Systems, measurements, and user-facing defenses
Influence operations
IO-X: Detecting content-duplicating influence operations on X/Twitter
Methods for discovering coordinated campaigns through duplicated content, attribution signals, and platform-scale analysis.
Censorship · misinformation
Information cocoons and the interaction of censorship, misinformation, and IOs
Mixed-methods research on how users experience censored information environments and how verification, evasion, and trust are reshaped.
Plausible deniability
Invisible and deniable storage
Storage systems and surveys for protecting sensitive data against coercive disclosure, forensic inspection, and strong adversaries.
Anti-censorship systems
Censorship evasion through online games and blockchains
Empirical and systems work on covert access channels, platform-mediated evasion, and uncensorable access mechanisms.
Fraud and abuse
App-market fraud, deceptive promotion, and social abuse
Measurements and defenses for fraudulent app promotion, rank manipulation, malware signals, and abusive social-network behavior.
Authentication
Visual authentication and liveness verification
Human-distinguishable key fingerprints, camera-based 2FA, and sensor-based liveness verification for mobile and wearable settings.
Selected publications
Recent and representative papers
ACM WWW · 2026
IO-X: Detecting and Attributing Content-Duplicating Influence Operations on X (Twitter)
Ashfaq Ali Shafin, Md. Nahid Siddique, Bogdan Carbunar.
ACM CSCW / PACMHCI · 2025
Cooperative Dynamics of Censorship, Misinformation, and Influence Operations: Insights from the Global South and U.S.
Zaid Hakami, Yuzhou Feng, Bogdan Carbunar.
IEEE S&P · 2024
INVISILINE: Invisible Plausibly-Deniable Storage
Sandeep Pinjala, Bogdan Carbunar, Anrin Chakraborti, Radu Sion.
USENIX Security · 2023
A Study of China's Censorship and Its Evasion Through the Lens of Online Gaming
Yuzhou Feng, Ruyu Zhai, Radu Sion, Bogdan Carbunar.
USENIX Security · 2023
Strategies and Vulnerabilities of Participants in Venezuelan Influence Operations
Ruben Recabarren, Bogdan Carbunar, Nestor Hernandez, Ashfaq Ali Shafin.
PoPETS · 2022
Toward Uncensorable, Anonymous and Private Access Over Satoshi Blockchains
Ruben Recabarren, Bogdan Carbunar.
PoPETS · 2022
SoK: Plausibly Deniable Storage
Chen Chen, Xiao Liang, Bogdan Carbunar, Radu Sion.
ACM IMC · 2021
RacketStore: Measurements of ASO Deception in Google Play via Mobile and App Usage
Nestor Hernandez, Ruben Recabarren, Bogdan Carbunar, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed.
USENIX Security · 2020
Human Distinguishable Visual Key Fingerprints
Mozhgan Azimpourkivi, Umut Topkara, Bogdan Carbunar.
ACM CCS · 2019
The Art and Craft of Fraudulent App Promotion in Google Play
Mizanur Rahman, Nestor Hernandez, Ruben Recabarren, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Bogdan Carbunar.
People
Students and alumni
I advise Ph.D. and M.S. students working on security, privacy, online manipulation, censorship resistance, distributed systems, and human-centered defenses.
Prospective Ph.D. students interested in these areas are welcome to read about the CaSPR Lab and contact me with a short research statement, CV, and relevant papers or projects.
Current students
Ph.D. alumni
- Ashfaq Ali Shafin - Ph.D., 2026
- Zaid Hakami - Ph.D., 2026 · first employer: Jazan University
- Yuzhou (Aaron) Feng — Ph.D., 2025
- Rubén Recabarren — Ph.D., 2021 · first employer: Facebook
- Nestor G. Hernandez — Ph.D., 2020 · first employer: MathWorks
- Mozhgan Azimpurkivi — Ph.D., 2019 · first employer: Bloomberg LP
- Sajedul Talukder — Ph.D., 2019 · first employer: Edinboro University
- Md Mizanur Rahman — Ph.D., 2018 · first employer: Amazon
- Mahmudur Rahman — Ph.D., 2015 · first employer: IBM Watson
Recognition
Awards, patents, and coverage
Selected awards
Best Student Paper Award at SIAM SDM; Best Paper Award at HotPOST; Nicholas D. Georganas Best Paper Award for ACM TOMM work.
Patents
U.S. patents on content caching, secure synchronization, motion passwords, anonymous source routing, and related systems.
Media coverage
Research covered by outlets including The Verge, The Register, CyberScoop, BleepingComputer, ZDNet, Nature News, and others.
Professional service
Selected service highlights
I serve the security, privacy, web, and social computing communities through program committees, workshop roles, and reviewing.
Security and privacy: IEEE Security and Privacy, PoPETS, ACM AsiaCCS, CANS, NDSS, FC, WPES, CCSW.
Web, wireless, and social computing: ACM Web Conference, ACM WiSec, ICWSM-adjacent social computing venues, LCN, ICNC.
Recent PC/service examples: IEEE S&P 2025–2026, ACM Web Conference 2019–2023, ACM WiSec 2020–2025, PoPETS 2019–2021.