{"id":916938,"date":"2023-02-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=916938"},"modified":"2023-02-08T15:34:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T23:34:18","slug":"research-focus-week-of-february-6-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/research-focus-week-of-february-6-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Focus: Week of February 6, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"193\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264-1024x193.png\" alt=\"Microsoft Research Focus 09 edition, week of February 6, 2023\" class=\"wp-image-916956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264-1024x193.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264-300x57.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264-768x145.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264-240x45.png 240w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_banner_1400x264.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p><em class=\"\">Welcome to Research Focus, a new series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n<aside id=accordion-3d6718f6-7bfe-4a41-b92c-e1dd3a96ac9b class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block accordion mb-5 pb-0\" data-bi-aN=\"table-of-contents\">\n\t<button class=\"btn btn-collapse bg-gray-100 mb-0 display-flex justify-content-between\" type=\"button\" data-mount=\"collapse\" data-target=\"#accordion-collapse-3d6718f6-7bfe-4a41-b92c-e1dd3a96ac9b\" aria-expanded=\"true\" aria-controls=\"accordion-collapse-3d6718f6-7bfe-4a41-b92c-e1dd3a96ac9b\">\n\t\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__label subtitle\">In this article<\/span>\n\t\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__current mr-4 text-gray-600 font-weight-normal\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n\t<\/button>\n\t<div id=\"accordion-collapse-3d6718f6-7bfe-4a41-b92c-e1dd3a96ac9b\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__collapse-wrapper collapse show\" data-parent=\"#accordion-3d6718f6-7bfe-4a41-b92c-e1dd3a96ac9b\">\n\t\t<div class=\"accordion-body bg-gray-100 border-top pt-4\">\n\t\t\t<ol class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#behind-the-tech-podcast-with-tobi-lutke-ceo-and-founder-shopify\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Behind the Tech podcast with Tobi L\u00fctke: CEO and Founder, Shopify<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#distribution-inference-risks-identifying-and-mitigating-sources-of-leakage\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Distribution inference risks: Identifying and mitigating sources of leakage<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#siva-kakarla-wins-applied-networking-research-prize\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Siva Kakarla wins Applied Networking Research Prize<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__progress-bar\"><\/span>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"behind-the-tech-podcast-with-tobi-lutke-ceo-and-founder-shopify\">Behind the Tech podcast with Tobi L\u00fctke: CEO and Founder, Shopify<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the latest episode of Behind the Tech, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott is joined by Tobi L\u00fctke, CEO and founder of the Canadian multinational e-commerce platform Shopify. Since his early days running an online snowboard shop from his carport, Tobi has envisioned himself as a craftsman first and a business exec second, a mindset he has used to solve a wide variety of problems. He and Kevin discuss applying computer science and engineering techniques to build and scale a company, the idea of bringing an \u2018apprentice mindset\u2019 to his work, and how Tobi\u2019s daily practice of writing code and tinkering in his home lab inspires him to be a more creative leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/behind-the-tech?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tune in now<\/a> to enjoy the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Libsyn Player\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/25376136\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/no\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/2672ad\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" oallowfullscreen=\"\" msallowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"distribution-inference-risks-identifying-and-mitigating-sources-of-leakage\">Distribution inference risks: Identifying and mitigating sources of leakage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Distribution inference (or property inference) attacks allow an adversary to infer distributional information about the training data of a machine learning model, which can cause significant problems. For example, leaking distribution of sensitive attributes such as gender or race can create a serious privacy concern. This kind of attack has been shown to be feasible on different types of models and datasets. However, little attention has been given to identifying the potential causes of such leakages and to proposing mitigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new paper, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/distribution-inference-risks-identifying-and-mitigating-sources-of-leakage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Distribution Inference Risks: Identifying and Mitigating Sources of Leakage<\/a>, focuses on theoretically and empirically analyzing the sources of information leakage that allow an adversary to perpetrate distribution inference attacks. The researchers identified three sources of leakage: (1) memorizing specific information about the value of interest to the adversary; (2) wrong inductive bias of the model; and (3) finiteness of the training data. Next, based on their analysis, the researchers propose principled mitigation techniques against distribution inference attacks. Specifically, they demonstrate that causal learning techniques are more resilient to a particular type of distribution inference risk \u2014 distributional membership inference \u2014 than associative learning methods. And lastly, they present a formalization of distribution inference that allows for reasoning about more general adversaries than was previously possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--503d18660161a60311e4a7c542db5203\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/distribution-inference-risks-identifying-and-mitigating-sources-of-leakage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the paper<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-fill-github\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/epfl-dlab\/property-inference-attacks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Framework<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"siva-kakarla-wins-applied-networking-research-prize\">Siva Kakarla wins Applied Networking Research Prize<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/sivakakarla\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Siva Kakarla<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> has been awarded an <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ietf.org\/blog\/anrp-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Applied Networking Research Prize<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> for 2023 in recognition of his work on checking the correctness of nameservers. A senior researcher in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/group\/networking-research\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Networking Research Group<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> of Microsoft Research, Kakarla was one of six people to receive this annual award from the <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/irtf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Internet Research Task Force<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their paper: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/scale-automatically-finding-rfc-compliance-bugs-in-dns-nameservers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SCALE: Automatically Finding RFC Compliance Bugs in DNS Nameservers<\/a>, Kakarla and his colleagues introduce the first approach for finding RFC (request for comment) compliance errors in DNS nameserver implementations through automatic test generation. Their approach, called Small-scope Constraint-driven Automated Logical Execution, or SCALE, generates high-coverage tests for covering RFC behaviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Applied Networking Research Prize acknowledges advances in applied networking, interesting new research ideas of potential relevance to the internet standards community, and people that are likely to have an impact on internet standards and technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-2 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--b602c015f0e75ba7c5ea72f9af491bd7\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/scale-automatically-finding-rfc-compliance-bugs-in-dns-nameservers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the paper<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to Research Focus, a new series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft. In the latest episode of Behind the Tech, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott is joined by Tobi L\u00fctke, CEO and founder of the Canadian multinational e-commerce platform Shopify. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42183,"featured_media":916959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"research-area":[13556,13558,13547],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[243984],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-916938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-blog","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-security-privacy-cryptography","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-blog-homepage-featured"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[199561,199565],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[559983,756487],"related-projects":[788945,648207],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"<img width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-960x540.png\" class=\"img-object-cover\" alt=\"Microsoft Research Focus 09 edition, week of February 6, 2023\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-960x540.png 960w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-1066x600.png 1066w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-655x368.png 655w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-343x193.png 343w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-240x135.png 240w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-640x360.png 640w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788-1280x720.png 1280w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/02\/RF09_blog_hero_1400x788.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/>","byline":"","formattedDate":"February 8, 2023","formattedExcerpt":"Welcome to Research Focus, a new series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft. In the latest episode of Behind the Tech, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott is joined by Tobi L\u00fctke,&hellip;","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916938"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":921585,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916938\/revisions\/921585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=916938"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=916938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}