#PSOSMatIIITH

[beingsecure]

Enriched & Enlightened #PSOSMatIIITH

Being Master’s student in the field of information security at IGDTUW, My main focus of interest is “Right of BEing SECure”. To work in the same direction of an applied domain of security and privacy, the first name comes to one’s mind is Social media. It's natural as you can see your friends, family members, and relatives etc. face many security and privacy issue on such social networking platforms. Being Information security student, it’s my moral duty to learn and use skills to build up such system which can give an essence of being secure.

For the same cause, I was fortunate to join summer school on Privacy and Security in Online Social Media at IIITH organized by Precog research under the supervision of PK sir.

#PSOSMatIIITH was not only hash tag on social media, it was like a shower of knowledge in every desirable dimension in the field on online social networks(OSN), which results in a rainbow of different aspects of security, privacy, and sociology in the context of OSNs.

The journey began in the way that my Guide Prof. Rishabh Kaushal told us about this summer school on PSOSM and boost up students to join it to explore eternity of different issue of OSNs. As I was already familiar with PK sir’s work as being his NPTEL student for #PSOSM course, so I decided to join #PSOSMatIIITH. Along with me, there were 14 more students from my college IGDTUW, who joined this summer school with same enthusiasm from 3rd JULY 2017 to 7th July 2017.

This summer school made happen so many things to me first time like my first flight and first ever time being in Hyderabad that too in IIIT.

#DAY0- After letting feet in IIITH on 2nd JULY 2017- there is ‘technical issue solving session’ by PreCog’s http://precog.iiitd.edu.in/ mentors team which had reached one day before us to help us at max. Almost all queries were solved by mentors and everything was setup for the beginning of summer school.

#DAY1-

Breakfast at IIITH mess was yummy, and I was totally in flavor of #PSOSMatIIITH after getting #PSOSMatIIITH kit ;)

The introduction of summer school: PK sir explained us – WHY we are here, what should be our aim and how should we gain max out of this summer school.

Dr. Vasudev Verma sparked the wisdom to do great in summer school by calling us “SOCIAL MEDIA Soldier”, whose fight is against unwanted elements over different OSNs.

Mr. ROB Sherman (DP officer at FACEBOOK), gave his talk about dedicated efforts of Facebook in direction of “making privacy personal”. QA session was mind blowing as new ideas were there on the desk. After his talk, there was a short break, which was intended to have interaction with speakers. PK Sir’s was the main emphasis was on everyone should get interact with as many intellectuals as possible.  Interaction with Mr. ROB was awesome.

After then, Dr. Krishna Gummadi’s talk was on “Targeted advertising on social Media: Transparency, control, fairness, and privacy.

Now it was the time of getting our hands dirty in lab session under potential mentor Divyansh (Research Associate at IIITD).We have dedicated mentors also for the full day. Every mentor including Anupma, Srishti, Neetu, and Kushagra was so helping that it seriously made life easy at #PSOSMatIIITH.

Next lab session was with Kushagra (Research Associate at IIITD).Mentors were helping everyone for small to big issue. We were gaining hacks from their experience of years, which they gained by hard work in OSNs.

3rd talk on the same day was by Dr. Manish Gupta on “Social Network Analysis”.

In this way, the Full day was caricatured by #PSOSM team as most worthy day.

Another Best thing about summer school was the perfect management of food with exact timings by the administration, special Thanks to Pooja ma’am and prof. Suryakanth v. Gangashetty.

I explained DAY1 in this much detail because I can’t cut it short.

#DAY2: Next day I was full of Zeal and joy to learn more. The day started with Kushagra’   Discussion on various Twitter and Facebook API endpoints, Rate limits & Data Collection from Twitter and Graph API as lab session.

Dr.Vasudev was once again on the floor. We were honored to get light on “Social networks- Noise and signals”.

I was amazed to see what real people were doing in the real world, how they think, how they select problem, how they contribute to making a better online society, how they present their work so elegantly so beautifully. They love to take our question. They just love to satisfy our query. People were getting light on their ideas, getting correct direction and it was feeling to be at the right place with right brains at right time.

After prof. Anupma Joshi's Talk on “Security, privacy, and social Media”, we moved to lab session by Divyansh.

Now PK sir was there to boost up us by collecting manual word cloud of the day, 75+ participants with different grasping of same content were speaking up their point of view on the same platform.

Finally, one more Perfect day added in Hyderabad Diary @PSOSMatIIITH.

#Day3: Day of Ideation -

The third day embedded with Lecture by Dr. Niloy Ganguly on “Computational journalism” and Lab session by Anupma (Ph.D. student at IIITD).

Now it was Ideation session was lunch, yesterday PK sir asked us to prepare our idea to present on the single slide over projector as team/individual project related to online social networks. More than 20 teams presented their ideas in front of all of us. Everyone got direction from PK on their project for this betterment. Our team including four members Astha, Chhavi, Himani and me. We presented our idea on “Scoring false/spam accounts over social media platforms”.

Here I would like to mention one more thing which touched our heart that was supporting staff at IIITH was awesome. They are quite helpful 24*7. They were abided to help us as much as they can in every possible manner. I really want to put my vote of thanks to organizing summer school at IIITH. Seems like Research is in its air.

In nutshell, Ideation session was awesome full of enjoyment with ultimate discussion between presenters and audience, plus added humor by PK sir: D

Finally, one more remarkable day added in Hyderabad Diary @PSOSMatIIITH.

#Day4:

Day started by Dr. Saiket Guha from Microsoft, “An OUT OF THE BOX talk”, most needed one as beginner researcher.

After then, lab session by Srishti (Ph.D. student at IIITD) on Adjusting Visualization Parameters and Basics of Social Network Analysis. Which was like a cherry on the cake of #PSOSMatIIITH learning for the beautiful representation of data.

There was one more talk by Dr.Amitava das, which was exclusively on the relationship of sociology & psychology and online social media. This led towards open challenges and way to think beyond fixed route.

 After class, it was the time when left brain met with the right brain. it was time to get colored in color of Hyderabad. There was a cultural fest organized by famous state artists. They sang beautiful Tamil and Telugu songs plus English ones too.

Finally, one more significant day added in Hyderabad Diary @PSOSMatIIITH.

#DAY5:

D-Day came-

People say time flies, but I must say time spent at #PSOSMatIIITH will remain in the core of the heart and root of the mind.

Now it was time for most awaited talk i.e.; PK sir’s talk. He told about his super exciting projects, works, and publication. He reflected hard work done in collaboration with his student army. His impression is like Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody has thought.

Now it was Groufie/selfie time, yes … you got it right “Certification time”. Everyone was getting the certificate of participation in #PSOSMatIIITH from PK sir.

There are few clicks from snapshot of time-

Looking at the photograph urges me to enter in that moment anyhow and re-live those 5 days at PSOSM summer school at IIITH. I tried to put my experience in words which were never ever sufficient to defined place and role of this summer school in my life. It gave me a chance to meet with wonderful persons like Deeksha(My roomie for 5 days in Parul Nivas, IIITH), Sanchit, Alok, Arvind, Ph.D. scholar Lalit and much more. At last, I greatly appreciate IIITD, IIITH, Precog members & our mentors. I am very thankful towards Rishabh sir for guiding us to join PSOSMatIIITH. I am also grateful towards my family and my friends sp. Chhavi and Himani to support me for being in such worthy summer school #PSOSMatIIITH.

At last but not least

PK Sir,

Any Infinite loop of “Thank you” will not be sufficient to convey my humble gratitude towards you. I am blessed to noticed by you, to heard by you and to be guided by you. Thank you so much for organizing such great Life changing #PSOSM at IIITH.

Keep Inspiring, Keep Guiding! 

Congratulations to you and your team!

-With sincere gratitude ~ Vasundhara Ghose