About Me

I am currently at Google working as a Privacy Engineer.

Prior to joining Google, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at ICSI, Berkeley, where I am part of the BLUES group working with Serge Egelman. I obtained my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, where I was advised by Christo Wilson. And before that, I worked with Krishna Gummadi at Max Planck Institute for Software Systems.

My research focuses on the web/mobile security & privacy. In particular, I study the online advertising ecosystem on the web to understand how it impacts users' privacy. My goal is to make the online advertising ecosystem more transparent to enable users make informed decisions regarding their personal information. I have also previously worked on projects aimed at limiting abuse on online services.

Education

• Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University   (September 2014 - August 2019)
  Ph.D, Computer Science

• School of Science and Engineering, LUMS, Pakistan     (October 2008 - June 2012)
  BS, Computer Science

Employment History

• Google
  Privacy Engineer
  February 2021 - Present

• International Computer Science Institute (ICSI)
  Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  Advisor : Serge Egelman
  October 2019 - January 2021

• International Computer Science Institute (ICSI)
  Research Intern
  Advisor : Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez
  Summer 2018

• Facebook
  Security Engineering Intern (Threat Infrastructure)
  Summer 2017

• Facebook
  Security Engineering Intern (Online Safety)
  Summer 2016

• Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Germany
  Research Intern
  Advisor : Dr. Krishna Gummadi

• School of Science and Engineering, LUMS, Pakistan
  Research Assistant
  Advisor : Dr. Basit Shafiq

Publications

• On the Privacy Implications of Real Time Bidding
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir
  Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, August 2019
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides (Keynote, PDF)]

• A Longitudinal Analysis of the ads.txt Standard
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir and Sajjad Arshad and Engin Kirda and William Robertson and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings of ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '19), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 2019.
  [PDF] [BibTeX]

• Quantity vs. Quality: Evaluating User Interest Profiles Using Ad Preference Managers
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir and Umar Farooq and Maryam Shahid and Muhammad Fareed Zaffar and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS '19), San Diego, CA, USA, February 2019.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides]

• How Tracking Companies Circumvented Ad Blockers Using WebSockets
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir and Sajjad Arshad and Engin Kirda and William Robertson and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings of ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '18), Boston, MA, USA, October 2018.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides] [Also appeared in ConPro '18 Workshop]

• Diffusion of User Tracking Data in the Online Advertising Ecosystem
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS '18), Barcelona, Spain, July, 2018.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides] [Dataset] [FPF Privacy Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award 2018]

• "Recommended For You": A First Look at Content Recommendation Networks
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Sajjad Arshad and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings of ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '16), Santa Monica, CA, USA, November 2016.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides] [Dataset]

• Tracing Information Flows Between Ad Exchanges Using Retargeted Ads
  Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Sajjad Arshad, William Robertson, and Christo Wilson
  In Proceedings of the 25th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '16), Austin, TX, USA, August 2016.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides] [Dataset]

• Strength in Numbers: Robust Tamper Detection in Crowd Computations
  Bimal Viswanath, Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Muhammad Bilal Zafar, Simon Bouget, Saikat Guha, Krishna P. Gummadi, Aniket Kate, and Alan Mislove
  In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Conference on Online Social Networks (COSN '15), Palo Alto, CA, USA, November 2015.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Best Paper Award]

• Preserving Privacy in Collaborative Business Process Composition
  Hassaan Irshad, Basit Shafiq, Jaideep Vaidya, Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Shafay Shamail, and Nabil Adam
  In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT '15), Colmar, France, July 2015.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Best Paper Award]

• Towards Detecting Anomalous User Behavior in Online Social Networks
  Bimal Viswanath, Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Mark Crovella, Saikat Guha, Krishna Gummadi, Balachander Krishnamurthy, and Alan Mislove
  In Proceedings of the 23rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '14), San Diego, CA, USA, August 2014.
  [PDF] [BibTeX] [Slides]