David Freeman

David Freeman

Anti-Abuse Research Scientist & Engineer • Meta Platforms, Inc.
dfreeman @ cs . stanford . edu 1 Hacker Way • Menlo Park, CA 94025
LinkedIn Profile CV (PDF) Travel Schedule

Current Position

I am a research scientist/engineer at Meta (formerly Facebook), focusing on abuse problems. I'm currently a Tech Lead on the Verification team in the Central Integrity organization. At Meta I have also worked on fake engagement, anti-scraping, and compliance. Prior to Meta I led various anti-abuse engineering and data science teams at LinkedIn.

Topics I care about from both a practical and research standpoint include:

  • Social network abuse (fake and compromised accounts; fake engagement; spam)
  • Authentication and identity verification
  • Scraping and bot detection
  • Adversarial machine learning
  • Measurement and experimentation for abuse problems

My book on Machine Learning and Security contains everything I knew about the topic as of late 2017.

If you want to learn more, you can look at some of my overview talks:

  • My Enigma 2020 talk describes good and bad approaches to measuring abuse on the internet.
  • My ScAINet 2018 talk presents some of the challenges in using machine learning for security in the real world.
  • My Enigma 2016 talk shows some approaches to protecting accounts from being taken over.
  • My Strata 2015 talk gives an overview of the kinds of anti-abuse systems I work on.

Academic Background

I was previously a postdoctoral scholar in the Applied Cryptography Group at Stanford University, under the supervision of Dan Boneh. My thesis and postdoctoral research focused on cryptographic applications of number theory and arithmetic geometry. Projects included elliptic and hyperelliptic curve cryptography, pairing-based systems, and lattice-based cryptography.

I received my Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. My Ph.D. advisors were Ken Ribet (UC Berkeley) and Ed Schaefer (Santa Clara University). In 2009 I was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at CWI, Amsterdam and Universiteit Leiden under the supervision of Ronald Cramer.

Other works in progress (v1.0 released December 26, 2010; v2.0 released April 10, 2014).

Research at Meta

Research at LinkedIn

Research at Stanford and CWI

Research at Berkeley

Undergraduate Research

Other Papers

Anti-Abuse

Cryptography

Program Committee & Conference Service

Teaching

In Fall 2011 I taught Elliptic Curves in Cryptography (CS 259C/Math 250) at Stanford. Course web page.

In Fall 2007 I was a Graduate Student Instructor for Math 16a at Berkeley, taught by Jack Wagoner. Section web page.

In Fall 2005 I was a Graduate Student Instructor for Math 1a at Berkeley, taught by Vaughan Jones. Section web page.

Other Activities

Fact Tree Enterprises

  • ClassicalCDGuide.com — Recommends classical music CDs, with Top 10/20 lists and recommendations by composer, era, and genre. Reviews are extremely detailed. Great for a beginner or someone looking to expand their collection.
  • SailingCourseGuide.com — Provides general advice for anyone in the U.S. who wants to sign up for a sailing course, including tips on how to choose between schools and warning signs of problematic programs.

Last updated 23 Dec 2025