Ramakrishnan (Ram)
Sundara Raman

Assistant Professor

Computer Science and Engineering

University of California Santa Cruz

ram[@]ucsc[.]edu
Ram is here!

I am an Assistant Professor in the CSE department at UC Santa Cruz. I am interested in using empirical methods to detect, analyze and prevent large-scale threats to the security and privacy of Internet users.

My research involves measuring and defending against Internet censorship and other forms of connection tampering attacks. My group builds empirical methods, systems, and data-driven analysis methods to study connection tampering attacks globally, offering insights into key network security events and the network technologies that enable large scale attacks. My research work has helped produce the Censored Planet Observatory, a global measurement platform for the continuous monitoring of various types of network interference. We also build and analyze defense mechanisms, such as censorship circumvention tools. Ultimately, my vision is to contribute frameworks, tools, and policies that enable informed decision-making regarding an accessible and safe global Internet.

📢 I am hiring PhD students for Fall 2025. Please email me if you're interested in joining my group at UCSC. For more details about working with me, go here.

My Research Group


I lead the R&Lab Security and Networking research group at UCSC. Members of my lab include:

Rohit Nagubandi (Masters Student), Dominick Rangel (Undergraduate Student), Leonardo Gallego (Undergraduate Student), Prasiddh Pooskur (Undergraduate Student), Ryan Sangha (Undergraduate Student), Felicity Shih (Undergraduate Student), Brian Huang (Undergraduate Student), Sriya Katreddi (Undergraduate Student)

Publications

Digital Discrimination of Users in Sanctioned States: The Case of the Cuba Embargo
Anna Ablove, Shreyas Chandrashekaran, Hieu Le, Ram Sundara Raman, Reethika Ramesh, Harry Oppenheimer, Roya Ensafi
USENIX Security Symposium, August 2024
🏅 Distinguished Paper Award

Modeling and Detecting Internet Censorship Events
Elisa Tsai, Ram Sundara Raman, Atul Prakash, Roya Ensafi
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), February 2024

Global, Passive Detection of Connection Tampering
Ram Sundara Raman, Louis-Henri Merino, Kevin Bock, Marwan Fayed, Dave Levin, Nick Sullivan, Luke Valenta
ACM SIGCOMM, August 2023

Network Responses to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine in 2022: A Cautionary Tale for Internet Freedom
Reethika Ramesh*, Ram Sundara Raman*, Apurva Virkud, Alexandra Dirksen, Armin Huremagic, David Fifield, Dirk Rodenburg, Rod Hynes, Doug Madory, Roya Ensafi
USENIX Security Symposium, August 2023
🏅 FOCI 2024 Best Practical Award

CERTainty: Detecting DNS Manipulation using TLS Certificates
Elisa Tsai, Deepak Kumar, Ram Sundara Raman, Gavin Li, Yael Eiger, Roya Ensafi
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), August 2023

Advancing the Art of Censorship Data Analysis
Ram Sundara Raman, Apurva Virkud, Sarah Laplante, Vinicius Fortuna, Roya Ensafi
Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI), February 2023

Network Measurement Methods for Locating and Examining Censorship Devices
Ram Sundara Raman*, Mona Wang*, Jakub Dalek, Jonathan Mayer, Roya Ensafi
ACM International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (CoNEXT), December 2022
🏅 IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize 2023

A Large-scale Investigation into Geodifferences in Mobile Apps
Renuka Kumar, Apurva Virkud, Ram Sundara Raman, Atul Prakash, Roya Ensafi
USENIX Security Symposium, August 2022

A Multi-Perspective View of Internet Censorship in Myanmar
Ramakrishna Padmanabhan, Arturo Filastò, Maria Xynou, Ram Sundara Raman, Kennedy Middleton, Mingwei Zhang, Doug Madory, Molly Roberts, Alberto Dainotti
ACM SIGCOMM 2021 Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI), August 2021

Lost in Transmission: Investigating Filtering of COVID-19 Websites
Anjali Vyas, Ram Sundara Raman, Nick Ceccio, Philipp Lutscher, Roya Ensafi
Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC), March 2021

Censored Planet: An Internet-wide, Longitudinal Censorship Observatory
Ram Sundara Raman, Prerana Shenoy, Katharina Kohls, Roya Ensafi
ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), November 2020

Investigating Large Scale HTTPS Interception in Kazakhstan
Ram Sundara Raman, Leonid Evdokimov, Eric Wustrow, J. Alex Halderman, Roya Ensafi
ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), October 2020
🏅 Best Paper Award Nominee

Measuring the Deployment of Network Censorship Filters at Global Scale
Ram Sundara Raman, Adrian Stoll, Jakub Dalek, Reethika Ramesh, Will Scott, Roya Ensafi
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), February 2020

Decentralized Control: A Case Study of Russia
Reethika Ramesh, Ram Sundara Raman, Matthew Bernhard, Victor Ongkowijaya, Leonid Evdokimov, Annie Edmundson, Steve Sprecher, Muhammad Ikram, Roya Ensafi
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), February 2020
🏅 CSAW'20 Applied Research Competition North America Top 10 Paper

Awards


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Teaching

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Blogposts & Reports


Selected Projects