... is a Distinguished Research Scientist at Verisign in the Washington, D.C. area. In my role with the Business Intelligence & Data Analytics group (BIDA; formerly Strategy & Analytics) I apply deep learning, machine learning, forecasting, and other data science techniques across our domain name business and associated marketing efforts. I publish my research and pursue intellectual property protection via my affiliation with Verisign Labs. Prior to Verisign, I completed my Ph.D. at UPenn in 2013 (MSE 2010) and my B.Sc. at Washington & Lee in 2007.
At Verisign, my recent work has focused on: (1) leveraging deep learning for generative and classification tasks, (2) modeling and forecasting the domain name lifecycle, (3) applying big data techniques to Internet-scale quantification problems, and (4) designing crowd-sourced data collection for market measurement and competitive intelligence. Complementing this work are broader research interests that include reputation management, metadata analysis, email/Web 2.0 abuse, underground economies, behavioral profiling, and Internet virality. Though the majority of my insights are now internally facing, my research approach draws from a rigorous background of 35+ peer-reviewed publications and a desire to bring emergent techniques to bear on business problems.
Before my current role, my dissertation research investigated security in "open collaboration" applications. I examined how user-generated content and collaborative semantics alter how abuses manifest and can be detected. This yielded popular tools, notably STiki, which removed 1.1+ million damaging revisions from Wikipedia. Media such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and The Atlantic recognized my contributions, and I was an active volunteer in the Wikipedia community.
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Systems and Methods for Identifying a User Session. West, A.G. U.S. Patent 12,536,453 (Granted January 27, 2026; filed June 6, 2019). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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Deep Neural Network Generation of Domain Names. Cholleton, A., Fischer, F., Hennebert, J., Labrou, Y., Raemy, V., West, A., and Wicht, B. U.S. Patent 12,169,768 (Granted December 17, 2024; filed May 15, 2017). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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Deep Machine Learning Generation of Domain Names Leveraging Token Metadata. Islam, M.R., Keneshloo, Y., Labrou, Y., and West, A.G. U.S. Patent 11,080,483 (Granted August 3, 2021; filed February 28, 2018). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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System for and Method of Ranking Domain Names Based on User Properties. Sheth, S., and West, A.G. U.S. Patent 10,693,837 (Granted June 23, 2020; filed August 24, 2017). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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Systems and Methods for Determining Character Entry Dynamics for Text Segmentation. West, A.G. U.S. Patent 10,771,427 (Granted September 8, 2020; filed February 18, 2016). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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Detecting and Mitigating Registrar Collusion in Drop-Add Acquisitions of Domain Names. Kakhki, A.M., West, A.G., Jawalkar, N., and Russo, V. U.S. Patent 10,375,017 (Granted August 6, 2019; filed December 31, 2015). [GOOGLE PATENTS]
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In the interest of brevity, this list contains selected peer-reviewed publications. My C.V. enumerates all writings. Publisher/repository links below point to the authoritative bibliographic source; PDF links point to author-accessible copies hosted on this site, with slides linked where available. Downloadable PDFs are author versions unless otherwise noted; the authoritative version is the copy published by the cited venue/journal.
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West, A.G. (2017). Analyzing the Keystroke Dynamics of Web Identifiers. In WebSci '17: Proceedings of the 9th International ACM Web Science Conference, pp. 181–190. Troy, NY, USA. [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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Heilman, J.M., and West, A.G. (2015). Wikipedia and Medicine: Quantifying Readership, Editors, and the Significance of Natural Language. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(3). [PUBLISHER]
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West, A.G., and Mohaisen, A. (2014). Metadata-driven Threat Classification of Network Endpoints Appearing in Malware. In DIMVA '14: Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment, LNCS 8550 (S. Dietrich, ed.), pp. 152–171. Egham, UK. [PUBLISHER | SLIDES]
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West, A.G., and Aviv, A.J. (2014). On the Privacy Concerns of URL Query Strings. In W2SP '14: Proc. of the 8th Workshop on Web 2.0 Security and Privacy. San Jose, CA, USA. A journal extension, Measuring Privacy Disclosures in URL Query Strings, appears in IEEE Internet Computing, 18(6), pp. 52–59. [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES | JOURNAL]
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West, A.G. (2013). Damage Detection and Mitigation in Open Collaboration Applications. Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania. [REPOSITORY | PDF | SLIDES]
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West, A.G., Hayati, P., Potdar, V., and Lee, I. (2012). Spamming for Science: Active Measurement in Web 2.0 Abuse Research. In WECSR '12: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Ethics in Computer Security Research, LNCS 7398 (J. Blythe, S. Dietrich, and L.J. Camp, eds.), pp. 98–111. Kralendijk, Bonaire. [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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West, A.G., and Lee, I. (2011). What Wikipedia Deletes: Characterizing Dangerous Collaborative Content. In WikiSym '11: Proc. of the 7th Intl. Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration, pp. 25–28. Mountain View, CA, USA. [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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West, A.G., Chang, J., Venkatasubramanian, K., Sokolsky, O., and Lee, I. (2011). Link Spamming Wikipedia for Profit. In CEAS '11: Proc. of the 8th Annual Collaboration, Electronic Messaging, Anti-Abuse, and Spam Conference, pp. 152–161. Perth, Australia. (Co-Best Paper Award). [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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Adler, B.T., de Alfaro, L., Mola-Velasco, S.M., Rosso, P., and West, A.G. (2011). Wikipedia Vandalism Detection: Combining Natural Language, Metadata, and Reputation Features. In CICLing '11: Proc. of the 12th Intl. Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics, LNCS 6609, pp. 277–288. Tokyo, Japan. [PUBLISHER | PDF]
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West, A.G., Aviv, A.J., Chang, J., and Lee, I. (2010). Spam Mitigation using Spatio-Temporal Reputations from Blacklist History. In ACSAC '10: Proceedings of the 26th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, pp. 161–170. Austin, Texas, USA. (Preliminarily published as UPENN-MS-CIS-10-04). [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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West, A.G., Kannan, S., and Lee, I. (2010). Detecting Wikipedia Vandalism via Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Revision Metadata. In EUROSEC '10: Proceedings of the Third European Workshop on System Security, pp. 22–28. Paris, France. (A preliminary version was published as UPENN-MS-CIS-10-05). [PUBLISHER | PDF | SLIDES]
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STiki (Spatio-Temporal analysis over Wikipedia): A Wikipedia anti-vandalism tool consisting of a back-end engine for real-time revision processing and a user-facing GUI which presents probable-vandalism to users. An extension to this software includes the code/analysis necessary to detect link spam edits. Software. [WEBSITE]
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WikiAudit: Heuristics to detect unconstructive wiki changes from a provided set of IPs; useful for network admins and investigations into editor bias. Software. [WEBSITE]
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Reputation Management Simulator: A framework to evaluate reputation algorithm performance. Software. Last updated: 2009/10/25. [ZIP | DIAGRAM-PNG]
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On a purely personal level, I have five fanatical interests in life:
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[1] West Virginia University Athletics: I was born and raised in WV.
[2] Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Thank you, Tom, for all the memories.
[3] Sarah: The love of my life; we [married] JUN-2022 in Northern Virginia.
[4] Maxwell Granville [1, 2, 3]: I got to spend 16 incredible years with this best good boi.
[5] Triathlon [swim, bike, run] and endurance athletics. Yes, I've done a couple long ones [IM#1, IM#2, IM#3], including that famous race in Hawaii [IM#4_KONA], and ran a couple marathon majors [BOS#1, BOS#2, NYC#1, LON#1] with a 2:53:47 marathon PR.
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Andrew G. West
Verisign Headquarters, 8224
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston, VA 20190
email: awest {at, @} verisign [dot] com (business)
email: west [dot] andrew [dot] g {at, @} gmail [dot] com (personal)
