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The University of New Mexico

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Media Contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627

kwent2@unm.edu

February 26, 2007

UNM Computer Science Professor Jared Saia Receives NSF Career Award

Jared Saia, assistant professor of computer science in the University of New Mexico School of Engineering, has received a Career Award from the National Science Foundation. The award is for “Foundations for Attack-Resistant, Collaborative Peer to Peer Systems,” a continuation of Saia’s work in the field of computer science theory.

Saia and his collaborators have developed algorithms that will allow a group on the order of hundreds of millions – a group as large as the entire population of Japan - to cooperate quickly and reliably even if the system is under attack by up to one-third of the users. These algorithms are surprising because they can guarantee security without the need for either a trusted outside party or the need for private communication. “These algorithms are robust to attack, and are completely scalable,” Saia said.

Saia said the work to this point has been completely mathematical. Now he and his collaborators are designing a product to be used in commercial systems. Potential applications for the product could be filters for spam, worms or viruses.

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