ANKUR TALY CURRICULUM VITAE

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth : 28th April 1986 Nationality : Indian Address : 139 Running Farm Lane, Apt 101, Stanford, California 94305 Phone : 732-513-5690 Email : [email protected]

EDUCATION

PhD Student in Computer Science (Sept 2007-present) Department of Computer Science, Stanford University

Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science Engineering (2003-2007) Department of Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) = 8.87/10.00

All Higher Secondary School Certificate (Year of Passing: 2003) Higher secondary school certificate (HSC), Cumulative Percentage Marks = 91 %

All India Secondary School Certificate (Year of Passing: 2001) Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Cumulative Percentage Marks = 86.6 %

PUBLICATIONS

S. Juvekar, A. Taly, V. Kanade and S. Chakraborty, “Efficient Approximate Symbolic Reachability analysis of Discrete timed digital circuits”. (In Preparation) PDF

S. Gaubert, E.Goubault, A. Taly, and S. Zennou, “Static Analysis by Policy Iteration on Relational Domains”. European Symposium of Programming, Portugal (2007) PDF

S. Juvekar, A. Taly, V. Kanade and S. Chakraborty, “Efficient Symbolic Reachability Analysis of Networks of Transition Systems”. General Motors Workshop on Next Generation Design and Verification Methodologies for Embedded Control Systems, (2007) PDF

MAJOR ACADEMIC HONORS

NIUS 2004: Was selected for the National Initiative for Under- Graduate Student (NIUS) Research – 2 year program in Physics organized by the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education (HBCSE) at the national level.

IIT JEE 2003: Secured an All India Rank of 69 (0.03 %) in the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (IIT JEE) in which about 1, 75, 000 students appeared

INPHO 2003: Was among the top 25 Gold Medalists (0.1 %) from all over India at the Indian National Physics Olympiad (INPHO). Was also selected for the International Physics Olympiad Training Camp

INCHO 2003: Was amongst the top 25 Gold Medalists (0.1 %) from all over India at the Indian National Chemistry Olympiad (INCHO). Was also selected for the International Chemistry Olympiad Training Camp

RMO 2002: Was among the top 30 students who were selected from the State of in the Regional Mathematics Olympiad (RMO)

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Static Analysis of Javascript to detect security vulnerabilities Advisor: Prof. John Mitchell, Dept of Computer Science, Stanford University (Nov’07-Present) It is well known that javascript can be exploited to launch browser based security attacks. In this work, we are trying to develop a formal framework for reasoning about javascript and detecting security vulnerabilities in it. We have developed a small step style operational semantics for the entire language. We are now trying to use this semantics to find subsets (without cutting down too many features) of the language such that all programs written in that subset satisfy certain security properties. We also plan to formally analyze the security of existing subsets of javascript such as Adsafe (Yahoo) and Caja (Google)

Efficient Symbolic Reachability Analysis of Discrete-timed digital circuits (Senior Thesis) Advisor: Prof. Supratik Chakraborty, Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay (Jul’06-May’07) In this work, we developed reachability analysis techniques for large transition systems (derived from digital circuits). By using overlapping projections to represent the set of states and by exploiting the locality of transitions, we developed and implemented (using a BDD based analyzer on top of NuSMV) novel algorithms for approximate reachability analysis, which could analyze systems that were well beyond state-of-the-art BDD based tools. We also connected our algorithm with the sum-product algorithm on factor graphs, frequently used in coding theory.

Static Analysis of Programs by Policy iteration on Relational Domains (Summer Internship) Advisors: Prof. Eric Goubault, Ecole Polytechnique (LIX) and Prof. Stephane Gaubert, INRIA, Rocquencourt • Stage 1 (May’05 – July’05) In this work, we developed and implemented an algorithm, using the policy iteration technique, to compute the fixed point of a monotone self map in the Zone abstract domain. We built a prototype static analyzer using OCaml and C Intermediate Language (CIL) and observed the improvements in terms of precision and efficiency, over the existing techniques based on the Kleene iteration procedure with widening/narrowing. • Stage 2 (May’06 – July’06) We generalized the theory of policy iteration for static analysis and developed a fixed point computation algorithm, using the policy iteration technique and mathematical programming for the general template abstract domain. We experimentally showed the gains in precision and efficiency over the kleene iteration procedure with widening/narrowing and also formulated ways of efficiently forming the templates.

Automata on Infinite Inputs (Junior Thesis) Advisor: Prof. Supratik Chakraborty, Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay (Jan’06 – Apr’06) This was a literature survey of various finite state automata (Buchi, Muller, Rabin, and Streett) which work on infinite words. We examined the expressive power of these automata and the transformations that exist among them. We also investigated the connection with satisfiability of monadic second order logic of one successor.

SELECTED PROJECTS

Quantum Cryptography (Aug’06-Nov’06) Advisor: Prof Bernard Menzes, Kanwal Rekhi School of information technology We analyzed in detail a few quantum cryptographic protocols (BB84, BB92, and EPR) and the type of attacks possible on them. We also investigated Quantum algorithms like Shor’s and Grover’s algorithms

Application of the Bird Meerteens Formalism (Mar’06 – Apr’06) Advisor: Prof. A Sanyal, Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay We examined the key ideas of the Bird Meerteens formalism and applied the idea to a few segment problems. We also developed an intuitive proof of the sliding tails theorem.

GCC Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) Interpreter (Jan’06 – Apr’06) Advisor: Prof. Uday Khedkar, Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay We investigated in detail the key features of the AST code dumped by GCC-4.0.0 and developed an interpreter for it. The interpreter was written using Lex/Yacc and OCAML.

CackoPhone (Jan’05 – Apr’06) Advisor: Prof. G Sivakumar, Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay We introduced a centralized server and developed a GUI front-end for Gnome Meeting which can be used for voice communication over a LAN using the H323 protocol. The software was developed in Ruby.

TALKS AND SEMINARS

Policy Iteration algorithm for static analysis of programs in Relational abstract domains (Slides) at European Symposium on Programming (ESOP) (29 Mar, 2007) and French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) (13 Jul,2006)

Efficient Symbolic Reachability Analysis of timed digital circuits (Slides) Dept of Computer Science, IIT Bombay (1 May, 2007)

COMPUTER PROFICIENCY

Languages: C, C++, Java, Fortran 90, Ruby, OCAML, Scheme, SQL, Tools: NuSMV, C Intermediate Language (CIL), GLPK, Scripting: Awk, Sed, Bash, Java script Operating Systems: Linux, Windows/Dos

OTHER ACTIVITIES

• I was an active member of PRANA: a journal club on Program Analysis and Verification at IIT Bombay. • I was the technical secretary of my hostel during the period Mar’04-Feb’05 and had organized various machine building and robotics competitions. • I was part of a team of 3 that won the first prize in the Intra IIT Robotics Competition. • I was selected to represent at the All India Metals and Materials quiz 2002, held by the Indian Institute of Metals. • I have been one of the organizers of IIT Bombay’s annual cultural festival – Mood Indigo.

REFERENCES

Prof John Mitchell Prof Supratik Chakraborty Prof Eric Goubault Dept of Computer Science Dept of Computer Science Laboratoire d’Informatique(LIX) Stanford University IIT, Bombay Ecole Polytechnique, France Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the particulars given above are correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Ankur Taly January 2008