Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering [SPICE] graduate researchers Kaushik Srinivasan, DongInn Kim, Jonathan Schubauer, Omkar Bhide, Shaktidhar Gopavaram, and David Argast attended the 2018 PrivacyCon conference and presented their research this year. Hosted by the FTC in Washington, DC, PrivacyCon 2018 is a collaborative meeting with a focus on interdisciplinary research sharing. It’s self stated purpose is:
PrivacyCon expands collaboration among leading privacy and security researchers, academics, industry representatives, consumer advocates, and the government.
Their goal is “to explore the implications of emerging technologies with a focus son economics of privacy and quantify harm done by companies who do not secure consumer information”.
Graduate researcher, Jonathan Schubauer, thought that the conference to be:
A unique experience with a mixture of government, staff, academia and technologists. Everyone was very accessible, even the CTO of the FTC. It was full of prominent people in their fields.
Research poster “Can You Hear Me Now? Audio and Icons in Privacy Permissions” was presented by Shaktidhar Gopavaram and Omkar Bhide and explored audio cues as a tool to communicate with consumers what their level of privacy would be during online application selection. They had a control, an audio group, a visual group, and a visual and audio group and significant results with both visual and audio on the participants’ choices. Omkar enjoyed his experience, stating:
We had a chance to talk with representatives from federal agencies like FTC, NSA, NSF as well as corporates like InterTrust and others who were willing to offer summer internships.
Research poster “Privacy in IoT Devices” was presented by Kaushik Srinivasan and Omkar Bhide. Their research examines the prototype use of Manufacturer Usage Description Specification (MUDS) for use with Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The goal is to use a MUDS File server in communication with a MUDS controller/router to solve the problem of IoT devices as security threats in their communications with the internet.
Research poster “Grifting in the Digital Age” was presented by DongInn Kim. His research investigates whether or not a toolbar could communicate with users if their data was secure. The study increased stress by penalizing people who did poorly by reducing their study payment levels. He found that the tool bar was acceptable and usable by non technical users.
Research poster “Lessig Was Right: Influences on Android Permissions” was presented by Jonathan Schubauer and David Argast. They looked into the permissions on application permissions over time. They found permissions were increased at an average rate, but dangerous permissions were increased monotonically.
SPICE is dedicated to research and outreach and is proud of the excellent work presented by our students.