Security Research
Security Research
Peer-reviewed research on network security, privacy, and anonymity systems — backed by hands-on security engineering for production deployments.
Konza Labs conducts and consults on applied security research. The work below concentrates on the security and privacy of network systems — the Tor anonymity network, transport and web security, and network measurement. We take pride in our analysis so that it survives contact with real adversaries and real deployments.
If your organization needs a security review, a measurement study, or research that ends in shipped code rather than a slide deck, that’s the kind of work Konza Labs takes on.
Members
Matt Traudt
Founder & Principal — the sole member of Konza Labs
Matt's security work spans the Tor anonymity network, web PKI and transport security, and network measurement. Before founding Konza Labs he conducted research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and collaborated with the Tor Project and academic partners — work that produced the peer-reviewed publications below and shipped code that runs in the live Tor network today.
Publications
Selected peer-reviewed work authored by members of Konza Labs. PDFs are available to download directly.
Journals & Conferences
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FlashFlow: A Secure Speed Test for Tor
IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) · 2021
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Self-Authenticating Traditional Domain Names
IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) · 2019
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KIST: Kernel-Informed Socket Transport for Tor
ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS) · 2018
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Privacy-preserving Dynamic Learning of Tor Network Traffic
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) · 2018
Workshops
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Does Pushing Security on Clients Make Them Safer?
Workshop on Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (HotPETs) · 2019
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HSTS Supports Targeted Surveillance
USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI) · 2018
Technical Reports & Proposals
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Tor's Been KIST: A Case Study of Transitioning Tor Research to Practice
arXiv:1709.01044 · 2017
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FlashFlow: A Secure Speed Test for Tor (Parent Proposal #316)
Tor Proposal #316 · 2020
Software & practice
Research at Konza Labs doesn't stop at the paper. Selected work that shipped and ran in production:
- KIST scheduler — a socket-transport scheduler merged into Tor 0.3.2.9 that prioritizes low-bandwidth, bursty web traffic over bulk transfers.
- sbws (Simple Bandwidth Scanner) — a maintained replacement for Tor's legacy bandwidth-measurement tooling, used by directory authorities to weight relay selection.
- FlashFlow — a secure relay speed-testing design and prototype for the Tor network.
Considering a research or security engagement?
Konza Labs takes on focused security research, review, and engineering contracts.
[email protected]