Pranjal Singh

PhD student @Dartmouth college | Reverse Engineer | CTFs with @teambi0s

[Boris Larin @oct0xor]

The recording of our (me, @bzvr_, @kucher1n) #37c3 talk “Operation Triangulation: What You Get When Attack iPhones of Researchers” was published! https://t.co/j97J9TiXsC

[Elizabeth Laraki @elizlaraki]

In 2008, Google Maps launched in India.

But we quickly ran into a problem:

Nobody used street names.

And street names were the foundation of Google Maps.

The team had to make some big adaptations.

15 years later, the changes have stood the test of time.

Here's how the team came up with creative solutions to adapt Google Maps to work in India:

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When Google Maps launched in India, turn by turn directions were unusable.

Because there were no road names, directions looked like this:

This was before real time, accurate GPS in phones had become mainstream.

In short, directions were pretty much useless in India.

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We could have left the product as it was.

We could have assumed it was good enough, would get better over time, or that eventually people would adapt.

But India was a massive potential market and we wanted the product to thrive.

The solution wasn’t just a case of acquiring and cataloging street names.

Many streets either didn’t have names, had multiple names, or weren’t known by their official names.

So we had to find an alternative.

We already knew that many communities around the world relied on landmarks (rather than street names) for navigating.

e.g. “Turn left at the park, head towards the water”

We knew this was also true in India.

But we had to confirm landmark based navigation would work.

And if it did, how we could make it work.

–––

So we dove in.

We started to explore how Google Maps could work if it oriented around landmarks.

But we needed to understand 2 key questions:

1. How did people use landmarks to navigate in India?

2. What types of landmarks were good for navigating?

This is where user research came in.

At the time, Google had robust support for user research.

There were research labs on campus with eye tracking technology and one-way mirrors.

There was a team dedicated to recruiting research participants.

But in this case, my friend and researcher extraordinaire, Olga (@okhroust) simply focused on how she could best answer these key questions.

She put together a creative and scrappy research plan.

And then she and Janet, the designer, hopped on a plane to India.

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What followed was nimble, on the ground field research to understand, first-hand, the answers to these questions.

They creatively explored various approaches including:

• Calling businesses and asking them for directions to their stores

• Asking people to draw diagrams of routes to familiar places

• Following people around as they navigated unfamiliar places

• Recruiting people to keep track of directions they gave or received + later interviewing them on their experiences

• Sharing early designs of landmark based directions and asking for feedback

Rather than relying on sophisticated technologies or being bounded by formal research methods, they creatively tried several different tactics to understand how locals navigated their way through India.

Olga and Janet found that people used landmarks to navigate in a few key ways:

• Orientation: “Head towards the water”

• Description of a turn: “Turn just past the Big Bazaar”

• Confirmation of the right path: “You'll see a petrol station on the right”

• Error correction: “If you get to the roundabout, you've gone too far”

Landmarks that were used for navigating included parks, monuments, shopping centers, notable buildings, stores, petrol stations, roundabouts, etc — basically anything that anyone would notice while on the road.

And so the team reworked turn-by-turn street directions to include navigational landmarks to help orient people, signal turns, confirm direction, and error correct.

The team worked through several iterations before landing on a final solution that emphasized landmarks, but also subtly included road names (when available):

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The research drove the product changes that helped transform Google Maps into the dominant navigational product for India.

A lot has changed in the last 15 years with the pervasiveness of location-enabled mobile phones, cheap mobile data, and generally how locals navigate in India.

But the use of landmarks to help people navigate through India has stood the test of time.

–––

What I love about this story and my 2 biggest takeaways are:

1. Research is a critical tool for ensuring you’re building a good product

2. Research can be as simple as just talking to people to answer your questions

tl;dr: If you are looking for answers, go talk to people.

For more on design + tips for early stage founders, follow @elizlaraki

[Siddharth M @Tr3x__]

Excited to announce that I will be presenting our paper - "ARGUS: A Framework for Staged Static Taint Analysis of GitHub Workflows and Actions" at @USENIXSecurity. ARGUS is the first static taint analysis system for identifying vulnerabilities in GitHub Actions. #usesec23

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

2021 was another tough and challenging year.

We acted proactively through the chain-reaction of unprecedented events of the continuing pandemic, improving the team spirit and culture, ending the year with prodigious achievements, insights and progress.

https://t.co/Ljxs5N1Y7Z

[Amrita InCTF @InCTF]

Register for qualifier round.
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#inCTF #cybersecurity #ctf #amrita #teambi0s #inctf #hacking

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

InCTF Internationals 2021 has come to an end.

Congratulations to @pb_ctf, @SuperGuesser, C4T BuT S4D for securing the top 3 spots, and congratulations to all other top teams!

Hoping to see you all next year as well!

Do rate us at: https://t.co/mhEHuk7Aq2

#CTF #InCTFi

[SpokespersonNavy @indiannavy]

Proud & historic day for India as the reincarnated #Vikrant sails for her maiden sea trials today, in the 50th year of her illustrious predecessor’s key role in victory in the #1971war
Largest & most complex warship ever to be designed & built in India.
Many more will follow...

[Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham @AMRITAedu]

Eight #BTech #students of our #Amritapuri campus have been selected for @gsoc 2021. Congratulations to Alluri Harshit Varma, Nived, Pranjal Singh, Vishnu Madhav, Simran Kathpalia, Aswin C, Anoushka Ramesh, Mainak Deb, Shashank Priyadarshi, Abhijit Ramesh.
#EngineeringTheAmritaWay

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

We are excited to announce that 4 of our members got selected to Google Summer of Code(@gsoc) 2021!
1. Pranjal Singh(@D3v1L___) - @ProjectHoneynet
2. Vishnu Madhav(@L4V450N) - @gnutools
3. Simran Kathpalia(@SimranKathpalia) - @freebsd
4. Aswin C(@cjuniorstweets) - @rizinorg
#GSoC

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

We finished 6th globally in the recently concluded bo1lers CTF 2021 organized by @b01lers. Thank you for the amazing CTF.

#CTF #cybersecurity

[ShaktiCon @shakticon]

#ShaktiCTF'21 is here! Go and #registernow @ https://t.co/O5ymn7I0C2!!

#CTFSchedule:
Start: 03 April 2021, 06:30 UTC
End: 04 April 2021, 18:30 UTC

🏆🥇🥈🥉 Win #prizes worth 4⃣0⃣0⃣0⃣💰💵!!!

#cybersecurity #CTF #infosec #WomenInSTEM #womenintech #security #Ethicalhacking

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

We finished 2nd globally in the recently concluded Securinets Quals CTF 2021 organized by @SecuriNets. Thanks for the CTF.

#CTF #cybersecurity

[Pranjal Singh @D3v1L___]

@akhlkg Where did you throw it?

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

Our team member @sayoojsamuel won the Bronze medal in Round 1 and @chandu_kona and @__4lph4__ won the Certificate of Diploma in Round 2 at the 7th International Olympiad in Cryptography, @NSUCRYPTO20

Link: https://t.co/TboeXtZafT

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

FPAnalyze by @sourag, and @cyb0rg.

Ritvik and Sourag presented a talk on their tool "FPAnalyze" titled "FPAnalyse: Aided Exploitation with Automated Exploitation" at @bsidesdelhi

Link: https://t.co/yIHnoUhfOD

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

secREtary by RE team.

This tool is made with the intention of helping with solving Reverse Engineering challenges during CTFs.

Link: https://t.co/DzLlNXMy40

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

Our team's performance statistics of the year 2020.

We finished 35th worldwide, and 1st in India for the 5th consecutive year.

We finished Top 10 in 12 CTFs this year. Noteworthy performances include securing 1st in IJCTF, 2nd in Byte Bandits, 4th in FwordCTF, etc.

(1/5)
#CTF

[Traboda CyberLabs @TrabodaLabs]

Something big is coming ashore! Stay tuned for latest updates from Traboda! #Traboda #TrabodaLabs #staytuned @teambi0s @amfoss_in

[teambi0s @teambi0s]

We finished 5th globally in the Decompetition CTF organised by @shellphish! Thank you for the great set of challenges.

scoreboard: https://t.co/EjRskTo2VM

#CTF #cybersecurity

[Amrita InCTF @InCTF]

InCTF Internationals 2020 has come to an end.

Congratulations to @OpenToAllCTF, DiceGang, @p4_team for securing the top 3 spots.

Hoping to see you all next year as well.

Do rate us at https://t.co/SaHQ0ERUcF

#CTF #InCTFi #InCTFi20