Speaker: Dr. Dennis Kafura, Virginia Tech
Date: Friday, November 6, 2009
Time: 1:25 PM -  2:15 PM
Location: Torgersen 3100

Abstract

Controlling the disclosure of personal information is a critical aspect of developing a sense of personal information privacy in a world increasingly pervasive in its collection of information and potentially invasive in its correlation, mining, and dissemination of this information. The broadly perceived dangers are accentuated by reports of the threats of identity theft, social and technical attacks aimed at ordinary persons or their computing resources, and technology developments that imply a deeper penetration of information gathering capabilities into the real world (via sensor nets) or the cyber world.

This seminar will describe SecurePlace, a research that has as its goals the development of an integrated set of devices, interfaces, services, and protocols which together create a usable means for ordinary individuals to have effective control of the disclosure of their personal information. The focus of SecurePlace is on socio-technical context that is, technology-rich environments in which people are in direct face-to-face contact with each other. The research project is grounded in three fundamental principles: place, reciprocity, and meaning. The usability of SecurePlace is evaluated within the domains of health information and a smart home, two challenging and complex environments where privacy is particularly important.