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Best Papers – Usenix Security 2022 (usenix.org)
65 points by a785236 on Aug 15, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



This one is fun: they trained a transformer model on Github to generate meaningful variable names and types for Hex-Rays decompiler output; it generates the same names as the original source code 66% of the time, and the original types 75% of the time.

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec22-chen-qibin.pdf


Cool!

Now, I'm not personally interested in reverse-engineering arbitrary binaries to audit them for security virtues or vulnerabilities...

But, with respect to compilers, ancient compilers, ancient compilers which exist in binary form only (no source code!), ancient compilers which exist in binary form only, where the company and/or individuals that once produced them -- have long since went out of business, ancient compilers that (because they are so old!) -- are no longer viable products in the markets of today, that is, they could no longer be sold for any profit...

Well, for those ancient, binary-only compilers -- I think tools like the one you've outlined above -- would be excellent, excellent research tools(!) for future computer historians and academics, to morally/ethically/legally/lawfully decompile those old binaries -- for greater understanding(s) of what they were, how they worked, how they were programmed, and how the original authors thought about compiling code!

Anyway, great link!


"The Antrim County 2020 Election Incident: An Independent Forensic Investigation"

This was an interesting read. Specially the technical errors in Ramslands (ASOG) report was eye opening.

https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/presentat...


For those unfamiliar, J. Alex Halderman is probably the leading academic researcher on the security of computerized elections (he's in the same UM security research group as Peter Honeyman, Chris Peikert, and Kevin Fu).

The tl;dr for Antrim County seems to be that the county spotted an error in their ballot format a few weeks before the election and got their ballot vendor to generate new ballots, but failed to consistently update all their equipment, so in a bunch of precincts all the Presidential votes got shifted by one candidate. Real votes for Biden were discarded, votes for Trump were recorded for Biden, and votes for Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson were recorded for Trump. A small remainder of incorrect votes somehow (I'm not reading carefully, but the paper has it exactly) had to do with miscoding of straight-ticket voting options.

Interestingly, a single discrepancy that apparently Halderman found on his own may have altered the outcome of a ballot initiative in Central Lake, MI, which was decided by one vote.




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