CV

Newton Masinde obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Computer Engineering in July 2006 from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya.

In 2007, he completed a Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE 2003 Track) training and certification, as well as obtaining Oracle Certified Associate level on Oracle 10g. In 2008, he worked for McCann Erikson, a constituent company of Scangroup Kenya Limited, a media advertising company as an I.T. technician. In the same year, he moved to Pegrume Telecommunications as an Assistant Engineer.

In August 2011 he was awarded a scholarship under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (I.C.C.R.) to pursue a Masters of Technology degree in Computer Science and Engineering at Osmania University, Hyderabad in India, which was completed in October 2013. From 2014 to October 2016, he worked as a Tutorial Fellow at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Bondo in Kenya. Since April 2017, he works research assistant in the Lab for Technology of Social Networks (TSN) led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ing. Kalman Graffi at Heinrich Heine University, Duesseldorf.

My Research

Peer-to-Peer Mechanisms for Fully Decentralized, Secure and Scalable Online Social Networks

P2P systems have been studied for quite some time now. Many applications have been built on to run within the p2p environment hinged on the advantages that these systems provide, such as decentralization of control, robustness of the systems, ease of scalability, ease in setting up the p2p network among others.  One such application that is of interest is the online social networks (OSNs) running on the p2p platform. Inherent problems that exist in the centralized OSNs such as lack of privacy and control of user information and data, as well as ease of scalability of the network without significant increase in the cost implications have resulted in a need for a decentralization of the system to allow users to have a say in these matters. However, moving OSNs to a p2p platform is challenging. To this end, my research aims at looking at novel solutions to solve some of the problems that may be experienced such as topology of network, security mechanisms, message dissemination, update handling, redundancy of data and data storage mechanisms.