Stanford Internet Observatory


Infrastructure and investigations
F ’20 –

Since October 2020, I’ve worked at the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) as a technical research assistant. I’ve worked on a combination of technical infrastructure, research projects, and investigations.

  • My research and investigatory work was quoted in Time Magazine, featured in VICE, and cited by the New York Times.
  • I built high-volume data ingest and analysis systems processing 250M+ events per day.
  • I implemented real-time media analysis pipelines with PDQ perceptual hashing, PhotoDNA integration, and asymmetric cryptography for CSAM reporting.
  • I reverse engineered Gettr (a far-right alt-network) to build GoGettr, a comprehensive Python library to archive and monitor the platform, and built analogous tools for Gab and Dissenter.

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© R. Miles McCain 2024. Content is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, a Free Culture License. The source code is available under GPLv3. This site collects (minimal) visitor analytics.