Will Scott

Research Interests

I want to support individuals coming together and finding community. My research focuses on understanding and removing limitations on Internet communication. This includes both imposed limitations like network interference, and creating unrealized communication models. I like thinking about network structure, measurement, and the evolution of the browser platform. I’m interested in pursuing a combination of research, teaching, and software development.

Education

2017 – 2018

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Research Fellow (Postdoc)
PI: Alex Halderman

2011 – 2016

University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Ph.D. Networking and Security
Thesis: Censorship Resistant Web Applications
Masters degree conferred Spring 2013
Advisors: Tom Anderson, Arvind Krishnamurthy

2006 – 2010

Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
B.S., Joint Computer Science & Mathematics; Concentration in Chinese
Graduated with High Distinction, Departmental Honors Computer Science
GPA 3.76
Advisors: Christopher Stone, Nicholas Pippenger

Fall 2008

Beijing University, Beijing, China
Studied abroad through the Pitzer in China program.
GPA 3.87

Honors and Awards

Teaching Experience

Winter 2018
Lecturer, University of Michigan.
Introduction to Computer Security (EECS 388)
Fall 2013 – 2015
Adjunct Professor, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
Operating Systems (ECE 341)
Software Engineering (ECE 323)
Databases (ECE 213)
2012-2013
2007-2010
Teaching Assistant and Grader, Harvey Mudd College.
Data Structures & Program Development in C++
Formal Logic and Computability
Computer Systems
Algorithms
Core Mathematics

Selected Talks

Work Experience

2020 – Now

Software Engineer, Protocol Labs.

2018 – 2019

Software Engineer, Oasis Labs.

  • Led a growing team through development of a first production version of a privacy-preserving high-integrity distributed platform.
2010 – 2011

Software Engineer, Google.

  • Developed & Deployed code for gmail, Google Contacts, and the Google+ Project.
  • Championed the export of Google+ hovercards to other Google properties.
2009 – 2010

Clinic Project Manager, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA

  • Led a four person, cross-disciplinary team in senior year capstone.
  • Developed image processing system for mapping the sun’s magnetic field from visible light measurements.
Summer 2009

Research Intern, Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China

  • Worked on sentiment analysis with the Machine Learning group at Microsoft Research Asia as part of an NSF sponsored REU
  • Managed a four-person team of two US and two Chinese students.
Summer 2008

Researcher, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA

  • Java-based image alignment to support computer vision recognition of hand-drawn sketches.
Summer 2007

Google Summer Of Code, Google

  • Worked with New Zealand based Silverstripe Content Management System.
Summer 2004, 2006

Intern, Trumba Corp. Seattle, WA

Publications

  1. Dennis Trautwein, Aravindh Raman, Gareth Tyson, Ignacio Castro, Will Scott, Moritz Schubotz, Bela Gipp, Yiannis Psaras.
    Design and evaluation of IPFS: a storage layer for the decentralized web.. SIGCOMM. 2022.
  2. Ram Sundara Raman, Adrian Stoll, Jakub Dalek, Reethika Ramesh, Will Scott, Roya Ensafi.
    Measuring the Deployment of Network Censorship Filters at Global Scale.. NDSS. 2020.
  3. Allison McDonald, Matthew Bernhard, Luke Valenta, Benjamin VanderSloot, Will Scott, Nick Sullivan, J Alex Halderman, Roya Ensafi.
    403 Forbidden: A Global View of CDN Geoblocking.. IMC. 2018.
  4. Benjamin VanderSloot, Allison McDonald, Will Scott, J. Alex Halderman, and Roya Ensafi.
    Quack: Scalable Remote Measurement of Application-Layer Censorship. USENIX Security. 2018.
  5. Eduardo Pujol, Will Scott, Eric Wustrow, and J. Alex Halderman.
    Initial Measurements of the Cuban Street Network. IMC. 2017.
  6. Sergey Frolov, Fred Douglas, Will Scott, Allison McDonald, Benjamin VanderSloot, Rod Hynes, Adam Kruger, Michalis Kallitsis, David G. Robinson, Nikita Borisov, Alex Halderman, Eric Wustrow.
    An ISP-Scale Deployment of TapDance. FOCI. 2017.
  7. Raymond Cheng, Will Scott, Paul Ellenbogen, Jon Howell, Thomas Anderson.
    Radiatus: a Shared-Nothing Server-Side Web Architecture. SOCC. 2016.
  8. Will Scott, Thomas Anderson, Tadayoshi Kohno, Arvind Krishnamurthy.
    Satellite: Joint Analysis of CDNs and Network-Level Interference. USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC). 2016. “Best Student Paper”
  9. Emily McReynolds, Adam Lerner, Will Scott, Franziska Roesner, Tadayoshi Kohno.
    Cryptographic Currencies from a Tech-Policy Perspective: Key Policy Issues and Technical Directions. 2nd Workshop on Bitcoin Research (Bitcoin). 2015.
  10. Ravi Bhoraskar, Dominic Langenegger, Pingyang He, Raymond Cheng, Will Scott, Michael D Ernst.
    User scripting on Android using BladeDroid. 5th ACM Asia-Pacific Workshop on Systems (APSys 2014), 2014.
  11. Raymond Cheng, Will Scott, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Tom Anderson.
    FreeDOM: a new Baseline for the Web. The Eleventh ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks
    (
    HotNets XI), 2012.
  12. Will Scott, Raymond Cheng, Jinyang Li, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Tom Anderson.
    Blocking-Resistant Network Services using Unblock. Working Paper.
    (available at http://unblock.cs.washington.edu).

Service & Activities

2017 – 2019
Board, Emerald Onion.
Privacy-focused community ISP.
2016 – 2018
Board, Seattle Privacy Coalition.
Protecting all people’s right to privacy.
2013 – 2016
Brigade Captain, Code for America.
Promote civic hacking in Seattle.
2013 – 2016
Student Representative, IP Management Advisory Committee.
Represent student interests in university intellectual property policy.
2011 – 2013
Student Representative, Faculty Council on Student Affairs.
Represent student interests to UW faculty on issues including conduct code and police jurisdiction.
2012 – 2015
Senator, Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS).
Representative on the University student government.
2012 – 2013
Curriculum Committee Member, UW CSE.
Help to improve department curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
2009 – 2010
Representative, HMC Board of Trustees.
Served as the student representative to the educational planning committee to provide input on changes in the college curriculum.
2008 – 2009
Social Chair, HMC.
Elected student government position funding campus social events. Revised party policy, Instituted training workshops for party hosts.

Skills

Language
Three years of college Chinese, with semester in Beijing focusing on intellectual property rights and mathematics. One year of college Korean.

Programming