Alex X. Liu

Alex X. Liu
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1266

Alex X. Liu received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin. He received the IEEE & IFIP William C. Carter Award in 2004 and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2009. His special research interests are in networking and security, and his general research interests include systems, distributed computing, dependable and high-assurance systems, etc.

Selected Conference Publications

Quantifying and Querying Network Reachability
Amir R. Khakpour and Alex X. Liu
in Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) , Genoa, Italy, June 2010.
Acceptance rate: 84/585 = 14%.

SafeQ: Secure and Efficient Query Processing in Sensor Networks
Fei Chen and Alex X. Liu
in Proceedings of the 29th Annual IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), , San Diego, California, March 2010.
Acceptance rate: 276/1575 =17.5%
CENDA-Camouflage Event Based Malicious Node Detection Architecture
Kanthakumar Pongaliur, Li Xiao, Alex X. Liu.
in Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Trust, Security and Privacy for Pervasive Applications (TSP), , Macau, China, October, 2009.
Acceptance rate: 27/85 = 31.7%
Best Paper Award
Bit Weaving: A Non-prefix Approach to Compressing Packet Classifiers in TCAMs [PDF]
Chad R. Meiners, Alex X. Liu, and Eric Torng
in Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), , Princeton, New Jersey, October 2009.
Acceptance rate: 36/197=18.3%
Topological Transformation Approaches to Optimizing TCAM-Based Packet Processing Systems [PDF]
Chad R. Meiners, Alex X. Liu, and Eric Torng
in Proceedings of the International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems (SIGMETRICS) , Seattle, Washington, June 2009.
Acceptance rate: 27/180 = 15%.

Iustitia: An Information Theoretical Approach to High-speed Flow Nature Identification [PDF]
Amir R. Khakpour and Alex X. Liu
in Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) , Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 2009.
Acceptance rate: 74/455 = 16%.

Collaborative Enforcement of Firewall Policies in Virtual Private Networks [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu and Fei Chen
in Proceedings of the Annual ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) , Toronto, Canada, August 2008.
Average review score = (4 + 4 + 4)/3 = 4 out of 5.
Acceptance rate: 40/132 = 30%

XEngine: A Fast and Scalable XACML Policy Evaluation Engine [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu, Fei Chen, JeeHyun Hwang, and Tao Xie
in Proceedings of the International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems (SIGMETRICS) , Annapolis, Maryland, June 2008.
Acceptance rate: 36/201 = 18%. Average review score = 8.7 out of 10. Ranked 2nd among all submissions.
Sample quotes from diligent reviewers
Full version is available here: [PDF]

All-Match Based Complete Redundancy Removal for Packet Classifiers in TCAMs [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu, Chad R. Meiners, and Yun Zhou
in Proceedings of the 27th Annual IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Phoenix, Arizona, April 2008.
Average review score = (4 + 4 + 4)/3 = 4.
Acceptance rate: 236/1160 =20.3%

Firewall Compressor: An Algorithm for Minimizing Firewall Policies [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu, Eric Torng, and Chad Meiners
in Proceedings of the 27th Annual IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Phoenix, Arizona, April 2008.
Acceptance rate: 236/1160 =20.3%
TCAM Razor: A Systematic Approach Towards Minimizing Packet Classifiers in TCAMs [PDF][BibTex]
Chad R. Meiners, Alex X. Liu, and Eric Torng
in Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), pages 226-275, Beijing, China, October 2007.
Acceptance rate: 32/220=14.5%
A Model of Stateful Firewalls and its Properties [PDF][BibTex]
Mohamed G. Gouda and Alex X. Liu
in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Yokohama, Japan, June 2005.
Acceptance rate: 78/319=24.5%
Diverse Firewall Design [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu and Mohamed G. Gouda
in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), pages 595-604, Florence, Italy, June 2004.
Acceptance rate: 83/377=22.0%
William C. Carter Award
Firewall Design: Consistency, Completeness and Compactness [PDF][BibTex]
Mohamed G. Gouda and Alex X. Liu
in Proceedings ofthe 24th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), pages 320-327, Tokyo, Japan, March 2004.
Acceptance rate: 72/406=17.7%

Selected Journal Publications:

TCAM Razor: A Systematic Approach Towards Minimizing Packet Classifiers in TCAMs
Alex X. Liu, Chad R. Meiners, and Eric Torng
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), to appear.
Firewall Policy Queries [PDF] [BibTex]
Alex X. Liu and Mohamed G. Gouda
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), to appear.
Complete Redundancy Removal for Packet Classifiers in TCAMs [BibTex]
Alex X. Liu and Mohamed G. Gouda
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), to appear.
Diverse Firewall Design [PDF][BibTex]
Alex X. Liu and Mohamed G. Gouda
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), Vol. 19, No. 8. August 2008 (Conference version appeared in DSN-2004 and won William C. Carter Award)
Firewall Policy Verification and Troubleshooting
Alex X. Liu
Journal of Computer Networks (COMNET) (Elsevier), to appear
SPP: An Anti-phishing Single Password Protocol [PDF][BibTex]
Mohamed G. Gouda, Alex X. Liu, Lok M. Leung, and Mohamed A. Alam
Journal of Computer Networks (COMNET) (Elsevier), Vol. 51, No. 13, pages 1389-1286, September, 2007
Structured Firewall Design [PDF][BibTex]
Mohamed G. Gouda and Alex X. Liu
Journal of Computer Networks (COMNET) (Elsevier), Vol. 51, No. 4, pages 1106-1120, March 2007
Key Bundles and Parcels: Secure Communication in Many Groups[PDF][BibTex]
Eunjin Jung, Alex X. Liu, and Mohamed G. Gouda
Journal of Computer Networks (COMNET) (Elsevier), Vol. 50, No. 11, pages 1781-1798, August 2006

Selected Grants:

NSF - TC: CAREER: Towards High Performance Policy Evaluation. $425,000. 08/16/09 - 08/15/14. PI: Alex X. Liu.
NSF - NeTS: Algorithmic Approaches to Optimizing Hardware-Based Packet Classification Systems via Equivalent Transformation. $440,000. 08/16/09 - 08/15/12. PI: Alex X. Liu. Co-PI: Eric Torng.
NSF - CyberTrust: Collaborative Research: A New Approach to Testing and Verification of Security Policies. $360,000. 08/01/2007 - 07/31/2010. PI@MSU: Alex X. Liu. PI@NCSU: Tao Xie.
Cisco Research: GADI-Grammar Aware Deep Packet Inspection at Line Speed. $50,000. 01/21/09 - 01/20/10. PI: Alex X. Liu. Co-PI: Eric Torng.
Michigan State University - Intramural Research Grants Program (IRGP): Privacy Preserving Execution of Distributed Security Policies. $39,000. 12/15/07 - 06/15/09. PI: Alex X. Liu.
Identity Engines, Inc., Mountain View, California - Gift equipment: Identity Engines Server, Value: $15,000$. 2007.

Selected Recent Professional Activities

TPC member, 2010, The IEEE INFOCOM
TPC member, 2009, The IEEE INFOCOM
Regional Arrangements Committee Member, 2009, The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)
TPC member, 2008, The 28th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)
TPC member, 2008, The IEEE Network Special Issue on Implications and Control of Middleboxes in the Internet
Publication chair, Internet Technologies, Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (ICST)
TPC member, 2007, The 15th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP)
TPC member, 2007, The 27th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)
TPC member, 2007, The 16th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW)