Michael J May

Michael J May

Algorithms and communication security researcher and senior lecturer in computer software at Kinneret College

Publications

You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.

Journal Articles

Automating Gravestone Documentation and Analysis With Generative Artificial Intelligence

Published in ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 2026

Applying generative artificial intelligence techniques and models to make the cemetery gravestones easier to transcribe and burial culture more accessible to the public.

Recommended citation: Michael J May, Jamal Majadle, Libar Vizman, Netanel Shen, and Efrat Kantor. 2026. Automating Gravestone Documentation and Analysis With Generative Artificial Intelligence. J. Comput. Cult. Herit. Just Accepted (October 2026). https://doi.org/10.1145/3849386
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Attitudes toward death and suicide through the lens of Ḥalutzi-era gravestones

Published in Mortality, 2025

A broad statistical analysis of how Halutzi-era Jews memorialized their dead through gravestones. We place an emphasis on sentiment analysis of gravestone epitaphs and analyze how suicide influenced memorialization.

Recommended citation: May, M. J., & Kantor, E. (2026). Attitudes toward death and suicide through the lens of Ḥalutzi-era gravestones. Mortality, 31(2), 327–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2025.2533974
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Improving a Model-Based Software Engineering Capstone Course

Published in Towards a Collaborative Society Through Creative Learning (WCCE 2022), 2023

An extended version of our study of sofware engineering capstone courses. The study covers 10 years of capstone projects at Kinneret, including a detailed description of the internal processes and documents used and a data-driven study of student reflections on their work.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Amir Tomer. 2023. Improving a Model-Based Software Engineering Capstone Course. In: Keane, T., Lewin, C., Brinda, T., Bottino, R. (eds) Towards a Collaborative Society Through Creative Learning. WCCE 2022. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 685. Springer, Cham.
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CEMDA: Preserving the User’s Mental Model on Android Files Using Complex Events

Published in ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review, 2023

Applying the theory of file lifecycle analysis to apps in Android. This work extends the foundational work on file lifecycle analysis from 2019 with many new rules and a novel rule-base engine for Android phones.

Recommended citation: Michael J May, Yaakov Cohen, Hovav Menachem, and Yogev Swisa. 2023. CEMDA: Preserving the User's Mental Model on Android Files Using Complex Events in SIGAPP Appl. Comput. Rev. 22, 4 (December 2022), 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3584014.3584016
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Donag: Generating Efficient Patches and Diffs for Compressed Archives

Published in ACM Transactions on Storage, 2022

A novel algorithm for differencing compressed archives based on file lifecycle analysis. The algorithm produces diff files significantly smaller than existing differencing tools, enabling quick application of patches to compressed archives.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May. 2022. Donag: Generating Efficient Patches and Diffs for Compressed Archives in ACM Trans. Storage 18, 3, Article 26 (August 2022), 41 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3507919.
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CemoMemo: Making More Out of Gravestones (With Help From the Crowd)

Published in Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 2021

A exploration of a crowd-sourced cemetery and gravestone documentation system called CemoMemo. Includes software architecture descriptions and usage lessons.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May, Efrat Kantor, and Nissim Zror. 2021. CemoMemo: Making More Out of Gravestones (With Help From the Crowd). J. Comput. Cult. Herit. 14, 4, Article 57
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WSEmail

Published in Service Oriented Computing and Applications , 2020

A revisiting of the WSEmail system after over a decade. Includes more about applications and new performance metrics.

Recommended citation: May, M.J., Lux, K.D. & Gunter, C.A. 2020. WSEmail in Service Oriented Computing and Applications (SOCA) 14, 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11761-019-00283-9
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On the Lifecycle of the File

Published in ACM Transactions on Storage (TOS), 2019

A foundational exploration of files and their lifecycle with application to intelligent file processing.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May, Etamar Laron, Khalid Zoabi, and Havah Gerhardt. On the Lifecycle of the File in ACM Trans. Storage 15, 1, Article 1 (February 2019), 45 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3295463.
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Conference Papers

Canonical Digests for Compressed Archives

Published in DocEng 26: Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, 2026

A novel method to create digests of compressed archives that is compression and format agnostic, enabling off-line and remote comparison of compressed archivers by content and across many metadata fields.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Saed Kezel. 2026. Canonical Digests for Compressed Archives. In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng 26). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 11, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3820755.3821482
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Memorialization and Attitudes Toward Suicide in Halutzi-Era Burials

Published in 39th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS 2023), 2023

A study of how halutzi era communities remembered their dead through a data-driven analysis of gravestone epitaphs.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Efrat Kantor. Michael J. May and Efrat Kantor. 2023. Memorialization and Attitudes Toward Suicide in Halutzi-Era Burials in 39th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, New York, 2023.
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Improving a Model-Based Software Engineering Capstone Course

Published in IFIP WCCE 2022: World Conference on Computers in Education, 2022

A ten-year study of software engineering capstone projects and the processes that were taken to improve their outcomes.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Amir Tomer. Improving a Model-Based Software Engineering Capstone Course in Proceedings of IFIP WCCE 2022: World Conference on Computers in Education, 2022. pp. 195.
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CEMDA: Detecting Android Complex File Events to Infer the User’s Mental Model

Published in 37th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC 22), 2022

An extension of the theory of complex file events to the Android operating system.

Recommended citation: Michael J May, Yaakov Cohen, Hovav Menachem, and Yogev Swisa. CEMDA: detecting android complex file events to infer the users mental model. In Proceedings of the 37th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2022. pp. 917–925. https://doi.org/10.1145/3477314.3507009
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Carved in Stone? Not Only: Towards Digitizing Cemeteries in the State of Israel and Interdisciplinary Cooperation in Colleges

Published in 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS 2019), 2019

Presenting the ideas behind the CemoMemo cemetery digitization platform.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Efrat Kantor. Carved in Stone? Not Only: Towards Digitizing Cemeteries in the State of Israel and Interdisciplinary Cooperation in Colleges in 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS 2019), Israel, 2019.
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Combatting Ransomware Using Content Analysis and Complex File Events

Published in 2019 10th IFIP International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and Security (NTMS), 2019

A method to fight against ransomware encryption attacks using intelligent file processing.

Recommended citation: M. J. May and E. Laron, Combating Ransomware using Content Analysis and Complex File Events, in 2019 10th IFIP International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and Security (NTMS), Canary Islands, Spain, 2019, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/NTMS.2019.8763851.
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Towards Unified Authorization for Android

Published in 5th International Conference on Engineering Secure Software and Systems, 2013

A model for better authorization of applications in Android. Includes implementation and formal proof of correctness.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May and Karthikeyan Bhargavan. 2013. Towards unified authorization for android. In Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Engineering Secure Software and Systems (ESSoS 13). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 42–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36563-8_4
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Strong and Weak Policy Relations

Published in 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks, 2009

A more flexible way to compare privacy policies using a comparison metric derived from process calculi.

Recommended citation: M. J. May, C. A. Gunter, I. Lee and S. Zdancewic, Strong and Weak Policy Relations, in 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks, London, UK, 2009, pp. 33-36, doi: 10.1109/POLICY.2009.20.
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Emergency Alerts as RSS Feeds with Interdomain Authorization

Published in Second International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection (ICIMP), 2007

Rethinking emergency alert technologies using RSS with interdomain authorization

Recommended citation: F. Gioachin, R. Shankesi, M. J. May, C. A. Gunter and W. Shin, Emergency Alerts as RSS Feeds with Interdomain Authorization, in Second International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection (ICIMP 2007), San Jose, CA, USA, 2007, pp. 13-13, doi: 10.1109/ICIMP.2007.15.
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Securing the Drop-box Architecture for Assisted Living

Published in 4th ACM Workshop on Formal Methods in Security Engineering: From Specifications to Code, 2006

A novel architecture for securing and improving privacy for assisted living technologies.

Recommended citation: Michael J. May, Wook Shin, Carl A. Gunter, and Insup Lee. 2006. Securing the drop-box architecture for assisted living in Proceedings of the fourth ACM workshop on Formal methods in security (FMSE 06). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/1180337.1180338.
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Privacy APIs: Access Control Techniques to Analyze and Verify Legal Privacy Policies

Published in 19th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop (CSFW), 2006

An application of formal methods model checking to legal privacy policies.

Recommended citation: M. J. May, C. A. Gunter and I. Lee, Privacy APIs: access control techniques to analyze and verify legal privacy policies, in 19th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop (CSFW 2006), Venice, Italy, 2006, pp. 13 pp.-97, doi: 10.1109/CSFW.2006.24.
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WSEmail: Secure Internet Messaging Based on Web Services

Published in International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2005), 2005

A secure recreation of email using web services. The result is a more secure and private, but open messaging system.

Recommended citation: N. L. Bhattad, C. A. Gunter, M. J. May and K. D. Lux, WSEmail: Secure Internet Messaging Based on Web Services, in Proceedings 2005 IEEE International Conference on Web Service, Orlando, FL, 2005, pp. 75-82, doi: 10.1109/ICWS.2005.138.
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Patents

Systems and methods for generating and applying a patch package

Published in WIPO (PCT), 2022

A description of the system used to create effective, small patch files for compressed archives. This is a patent-level description of the algorithm used in Donag and a generalization for all patch files for compressed archives. This is the WIPO version of the patent for global patent publication.

Recommended citation: Etamar Laron and Michael J. May. 2022. Systems and methods for generating and applying a patch package. (Dec 2022). WIPO PCT no. WO2022269612A1. Filed June 22, 2022, Issued Dec 29, 2022
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Systems and methods for generating and applying a patch package

Published in Israel Patent Office, 2021

A description of the system used to create effective, small patch files for compressed archives. This is a patent-level description of the algorithm used in Donag and a generalization for all patch files for compressed archives.

Recommended citation: Etamar Laron and Michael J. May. 2022. Systems and methods for generating and applying a patch package. (June 2022). Patent no. IL284315B, Filed June 22, 2021, Issued June 1, 2022
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