Paul Schmitt
Assistant Professor
Cal Poly
prs@calpoly.edu
publications | preprints | tech reports | teaching | cv
I am an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering department at Cal Poly, and a principal investigator at the International Computer Science Institute. I previously worked at the Information Sciences Institute and the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University. I completed my Ph.D. as a member of the MOMENT lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I'm also co-founder and CEO of Invisv.
I work to make the Internet better by designing and building networked systems that improve privacy, enhance performance, and provide insight into networks. My research is rooted in expertise in protocols and architectures that are used at massive scales and underpin modern connectivity. To create immediate impact, I seek to create "dirty-slate" solutions that explore fundamental principles while being rapidly deployable in operational networks.
Publications
Beyond Data Points: Regionalizing Crowdsourced Latency Measurements
- Taveesh Sharma, Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino, Nick Feamster, Nicole Marwell
- to appear in ACM SIGMETRICS, June 2025
Feasibility of State Space Models for Network Traffic Generation
- Andrew Chu, Xi Jiang, Shinan Liu, Arjun Nitin Bhagoji, Francesco Bronzino, Paul Schmitt, Nick Feamster
- SIGCOMM Workshop on Networks for AI Computing, August 2024
NetDiffusion: Network Data Augmentation Through Protocol-Constrained Traffic Generation
- Xi Jiang, Shinan Liu, Aaron Gember-Jacobson, Arjun Nitin Bhagoji, Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino, Nick Feamster
- ACM SIGMETRICS, June 2024
LEAF: Navigating Concept Drift in Cellular Networks
- Shinan Liu, Francesco Bronzino, Paul Schmitt, Arjun Bhagoji, Nick Feamster, Hector Garcia Crespo, Timothy Coyle, Brian Ward
- Proc. of the ACM on Networking (PACMNET), Vol. 1, No. CoNEXT2, September 2023
Generative, High-Fidelity Network Traces
- Xi Jiang, Shinan Liu, Aaron Gember-Jacobson, Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino, Nick Feamster
- ACM HotNets, November 2023
Measuring the Performance of iCloud Private Relay
- Martino Trevisan, Idilio Drago, Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino
- Passive and Active Measurements Conference (PAM), March 2023
The Decoupling Principle: a Practical Privacy Framework
- Paul Schmitt, Jana Iyengar, Christopher Wood, Barath Raghavan
- ACM HotNets, November 2022
Traffic Refinery: Cost-Aware Data Representation for Machine Learning on Network Traffic
- Francesco Bronzino, Paul Schmitt, Sara Ayoubi, Hyojoon Kim, Renata Teixeira, Nick Feamster
- ACM SIGMETRICS, June 2022
New Directions in Automated Traffic Analysis
- Jordan Holland, Paul Schmitt, Nick Feamster, Prateek Mittal
- ACM CCS, November 2021
Designing for Tussle in Encrypted DNS
- Austin Hounsel, Paul Schmitt, Kevin Borgolte, Nick Feamster
- ACM HotNets, November 2021
Pretty Good Phone Privacy
- Paul Schmitt, Barath Raghavan
- USENIX Security Symposium, August 2021
Encryption without Centralization: Distributing DNS Queries Across Recursive Resolvers
- Austin Hounsel, Paul Schmitt, Kevin Borgolte, Nick Feamster
- ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW), July 2021
Can Encrypted DNS Be Fast?
- Austin Hounsel, Paul Schmitt, Kevin Borgolte, Nick Feamster
- Passive and Active Measurements Conference (PAM), March 2021
Characterizing Service Provider Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
- Shinan Liu, Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino, Nick Feamster
- Passive and Active Measurements Conference (PAM), March 2021
Mapping the Digital Divide: Before, During, and After COVID-19
- Francesco Bronzino, Nick Feamster, Shinan Liu, James Saxon, Paul Schmitt
- The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), February 2021
Inferring Streaming Video Quality from Encrypted Traffic: Practical Models and Deployment Experience
- Francesco Bronzino, Paul Schmitt, Sara Ayoubi, Guilherme Martins, Renata Teixeira, Nick Feamster
- ACM SIGMETRICS, June 2020
Comparing the Effects of DNS, DoT, and DoH on Web Performance
- Austin Hounsel, Kevin Borgolte, Paul Schmitt, Jordan Holland, Nick Feamster
- The Web Conference (WWW), April 2020
How DNS over HTTPS is Reshaping Privacy, Performance, and Policy in the Internet Ecosystem
- Kevin Borgolte, Tithi Chattopadhyay, Nick Feamster, Mihir Kshirsagar, Jordan Holland, Austin Hounsel, Paul Schmitt
- The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), September 2019
Oblivious DNS: Practical Privacy for DNS Queries
- Paul Schmitt, Anne Edmundson, Allison Mankin, Nick Feamster
- Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 2019
MPTCP Performance over Heterogenous Subpaths
- Vivek Adarsh, Paul Schmitt, Elizabeth Belding
- The International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), July 2019
Third-Party Cellular Congestion Detection and Augmentation
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, Mariya Zheleva, Elizabeth Belding
- IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, January 2019
AirPress: High-accuracy Spectrum Summarization Using Compressed Scans
- Mariya Zheleva, Timothy Larock, Paul Schmitt, Petko Bogdanov
- IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN), October 2018
Enhancing Transparency: Internet Video Quality Inference from Network Traffic
- Paul Schmitt, Francesco Bronzino, Renata Teixeira, Tithi Chattopadhyay, Nick Feamster
- The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), September 2018
A Cellular Network Radio Access Performance Measurement System: Results from a Ugandan Refugee Settlements Field Trial
- Carleen Maitland, Richard Caneba, Paul Schmitt, Tom Koutsky
- The Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), September 2018
Cellular and Internet Connectivity for Displaced Populations
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, Elizabeth Belding, Mariya Zheleva
- Chapter in "Digital Lifeline? ICTs for Refugees and Displaced Persons", MIT Press, May 2018
AirVIEW: Unsupervised Transmitter Detection for Next Generation Spectrum Sensing
- Mariya Zheleva, Petko Bogdanov, Timothy Larock, Paul Schmitt
- IEEE Infocom, April 2018
Low On Air: Inherent Wireless Channel Capacity Limitations
- Paul Schmitt, Elizabeth Belding
- Workshop on Computing within Limits (LIMITS), June 2017
Helping the Lone Operator in the Vast Frontier
- Thomas Pötsch, Paul Schmitt, Jay Chen, Barath Raghavan
- ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets), November 2016
PhoneHome: Robust Extension of Cellular Coverage
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, Elizabeth Belding, and Mariya Zheleva
- The International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), August 2016
SmartCell: Small-Scale Mobile Congestion Awareness
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, and Elizabeth Belding
- IEEE Communications Magazine, July 2016
Navigating Connectivity in Reduced Infrastructure Environments
- Paul Schmitt, Elizabeth Belding
- Workshop on Computing within Limits (LIMITS), June 2016
Community-Level Access Divides: A Refugee Camp Case Study
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, Elizabeth Belding, Brian Tomaszewski, Ying Xu, and Carleen Maitland
- International Conference on Information and Communications Technology and Development (ICTD), June 2016
HybridCell: Cellular connectivity on the fringes with demand-driven local cells
- Paul Schmitt, Daniel Iland, Mariya Zheleva, Elizabeth Belding
- IEEE Infocom, April 2016
A Study of MVNO Data Paths and Performance
- Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Elizabeth Belding
- Passive and Active Measurements Conference (PAM), March 2016
Internet Media Upload Caching for Poorly-Connected Regions
- Paul Schmitt, Ramya Raghavendra, Elizabeth Belding
- ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (DEV), December 2015
Internet Bandwidth Upgrade: Implications on Performance and Usage in Rural Zambia
- Mariya Zheleva, Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Elizabeth Belding
- Information Technologies and International Development Journal (ITID), Vol 11, Issue 2 Summer 2015
The Increased Bandwidth Fallacy: Performance and Usage in Rural Zambia
- Mariya Zheleva, Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Elizabeth Belding
- ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (DEV), December 2013
Bringing visibility to rural users in Côte d'Ivoire
- Mariya Zheleva, Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Elizabeth Belding
- International Conference on Information and Communications Technology and Development (ICTD), December 2013
Community detection in cellular network traces
- Mariya Zheleva, Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Elizabeth Belding
- International Conference on Information and Communications Technology and Development (ICTD), December 2013
Communication flow patterns in the Orange Telecom D4D dataset
- Paul Schmitt, Morgan Vigil, Mariya Zheleva, Elizabeth Belding
- Conference on the Analysis of Mobile Phone Datasets (NetMob), May 2013
Preprints and Work in Submission
The Ghost Trilemma
- Sulagna Mukherjee, Srivatsan Ravi, Paul Schmitt, Barath Raghavan
- arXiv:2308.02202 [cs.CR], August 2023
Internet Localization of Multi-Party Relay Users: Inherent Friction Between Internet Services and User Privacy
- Sean Flynn, Francesco Bronzino, Paul Schmitt
- arXiv:2307.04009 [cs.NI], July 2023
Towards Reproducible Network Traffic Analysis
- Jordan Holland, Paul Schmitt, Prateek Mittal, Nick Feamster
- arXiv:2203.12410 [cs.NI], March 2022
Enabling Personalized Video Quality Optimization
- Xu Zhang, Paul Schmitt, Marchini Chetty, Nick Feamster, Junchen Jiang
Technical Reports
A Pluralist Approach to Democratizing Online Discourse
- Jay Chen, Barath Raghavan, Paul Schmitt, Tai Liu
- arXiv:2108.12573 [cs.NI], August 2021
Classifying Network Vendors at Internet Scale
- Jordan Holland, Ross Teixeira, Paul Schmitt, Kevin Borgolte, Jennifer Rexford, Nick Feamster, Jonathan Mayer
- arXiv:2006.13086 [cs.NI], June 2020
Beyond the Trees: Resilient Multipath for Last-mile WISP Networks
- Bilal Saleem, Paul Schmitt, Jay Chen, Barath Raghavan
- arXiv:2002.12473 [cs.NI], February 2020
OCDN: Oblivious Content Delivery Networks
- Anne Edmundson, Paul Schmitt, Nick Feamster, Jennifer Rexford
- arXiv:1806.00276 [cs.NI], December 2018
Rangzen: Anonymously Getting the Word Out in a Blackout
- Adam Lerner, Giulia Fanti, Yahel Ben-David, Jesus Garcia, Paul Schmitt, Barath Raghavan
- arXiv:1612.03371 [cs.NI], December 2016
Youth Mobile Phone and Internet Use January 2015 Za'atari Camp, Mafraq, Jordan
- Carleen Maitland, Brian Tomaszewski, Elizabeth Belding, Karen Fisher, Ying Xu, Danny Iland, Paul Schmitt, Amira Majid
- Technical report prepared for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), October 2015