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Security
and Privacy in
Ubiquitous Computing
Abstract
I introduced the principle of proportionality as a design principle able to help tackle privacy and security issues of ubicomp applications. The principle originates within the legal and data protection communities and I developed from it a design method based on experience gained working with a number of different ubicomp applications at Georgia Tech and elsewhere. The method is aimed at HCI practitioners and designers. In the publications below, I discuss real-world examples, and related user inquiry techniques and requirements engineering models. I report a sample application of the method, involving a ubiquitous, personal memory aid tool.
The proportionality method has become the main topic of my PhD dissertation, and I am currently in the process of validating it in a comparative design exercise.
Publications
Privacy by Proportionality: Adapting Legal Evaluation Techniques to Inform Design In Ubiquitous Computing Presented at CHI 2005, April 5, 2005, Portland, OR.
Follow-up work has been presented at the Ubicomp 2005 Privacy in Context Workshop, Tokyo, Japan.
Based on the experience gained from designing and evaluating a social location disclosure application, called Reno, we developed design guidelines that address the issues of:
The papers below also report on lessons learned from the evaluation experience, which might help practitioners in designing novel mobile applications. These lessons include: the choice and characterization of users in face of testing security and privacy features of designs, the length of learning curves and how they affect evaluation and the impact of peculiar circumstances of the deployments on the results of these finely tuned user studies.
I also published an article that describes one of the user studies discussed in the paper above. This study is specifically aimed at investigating the need for and effectiveness of automatic location disclosure mechanisms, the emerging strategies to achieve plausible deniability, and at understanding how place and activity are used to communicate plans, intentions and provide awareness.
This work was done while at Intel Reserach in Seattle, WA.
Publications
The design guidelines were presented at SOUPS 2005, July 6-8, 2005, Pittsburgh, PA, USA and were awarded best paper.
The user study was presented at Ubicomp 2005, Sept. 11-14 2005, Tokyo, Japan.
The increasing capabilities of personal IT devices are allowing an array of novel applications, which carry a baggage of complex legal and ethical questions. The case study of a cell-phone-based continuous recording system used as memory aid (the Personal Audio Loop) shows how this pervasive technology is expanding beyond its traditional social role, raising multiple privacy concerns. These issues are addressed up front, incorporating legislative and sociological analysis in relation to physical space and information ownership, to shape the design and evaluation, and to predict how new applications change the way people relate to technology.
Publications
The Personal Audio Loop: Designing a Ubiquitous Audio-Based Memory Aid Presented at Mobile HCI 2004, Sept. 13-16, 2004, Glasgow, UK.
Abstract
Environmental multimedia capture and access is one of the main technological thrusts of ubiquitous computing. Currently, these technologies are being systematized as general-purpose middleware. Research has focused in the past years on getting the thing done and has rarely addressed nonfunctional requirements such as those associated with security, information ownership and privacy. This project is aimed at implementing a security infrastructure for a middleware research platform for capture and access (InCA).
Deriving
security requirements for ubicomp
infrastructure software
using scenarios (Ubicomp
2003 Security workshop)
A
Token-based Access Control Mechanism for Automated Capture and Access
Systems in Ubiquitous Computing
(GIT
Technical Report
GIT-GVU-05-06)
Abstract
Automatic surveillance technologies are becoming an integral part of our everyday experience in public and private spaces. Technical advancements carry the promise of expanded applications and uses, but also increased social risk. In a joint research project with the Sam Nunn Security Program at the School of International Affairs of Georgia Tech, we are studying public and international policy issues regarding advanced environmental multimedia capture and access technology. We believe that it is researchers and designers' responsibility to make policy an integral part of the design process of new applications and technologies.Publications
A book chapter under preparation summarizes part of this work.Contact
Information
College
of Computing
Room:
TSRB 330
Georgia
Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
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