Decoding Abusive Adversaries for Safer Digital Systems

People today face threats to their digital safety that most computing systems were never designed to protect them from: those closest to them. Abusive adversaries take ample advantage of standard user interfaces and ineffective anti-abuse mechanisms, leveraging their close social and physical proximity to their target to stalk, harass, and control. In this talk, I describe my research focused on intimate partner violence where I: (1) pioneer approaches to engaging with abusive adversaries first hand across online and in-person contexts, (2) design and deploy bespoke systems to challenge abusive behaviors via community-based interventions; and (3) develop new frameworks for building abuse-resilient technologies. I outline my research vision to achieve digital safety for all people across critical domains, including finance, healthcare, and research.