Amjad is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech, advised by Dr. Muhammad Ali Gulzar from Virginia Tech and Dr. Zubair Shafiq from UC Davis. His research focuses on using software engineering techniques to tackle internet security and privacy challenges. He is also member of ProperData research group and Co-host at NothingToHide? podcast.
Websites often incorporate third-party code, such as JavaScript, to enhance features, but this code can also track users' online activities, raising privacy concerns. Traditional content blockers struggle to differentiate legitimate functionality from tracking behavior when the code originates from the same source. Amjad’s research addresses this challenge by analyzing real-time code execution. He has developed tools and frameworks to capture and study the detailed execution context, including function call stacks and calling contexts. This understanding of context enables precise identification of code segments responsible for tracking. Furthermore, new code variants are generated to maintain the intended functionality while removing tracking components. These context-aware approaches provide an accurate method to detect tracking within complex code, enabling more effective content-blocking tools. Unlike basic filter lists that lack code understanding, Amjad's dynamic analysis frameworks offer a scalable and robust solution tailored to the modern web landscape. His research is paving the way for granular privacy protection without compromising the online experience.
For more: CV [Last updated Feb'23]
For more: Thesis [Last updated Feb'24]