Author: serge

AbstractIP spoofing, sending IP packets with a false source IP address, continues to be a primary attack vector for large-scale Denial of Service attacks. To combat spoofing, various interventions have been tried to increase the adoption of source address validation (SAV) among network operators. How can SAV deployment be increased? In this work, we conduct […]

AbstractSoftware development teams are responsible for making and implementing software design decisions that directly impact end-user privacy, a challenging task to do well. Privacy Champions—people who strongly care about advocating privacy—play a useful role in supporting privacy-respecting development cultures. To understand their motivations, challenges, and strategies for protecting end-user privacy, we conducted 12 interviews with […]

AbstractMobile advertising networks present personalized advertisements to developers as a way to increase revenue. These types of ads use data about users to select potentially more relevant content. However, choice framing also impacts app developers’ decisions which in turn impacts their users’ privacy. Currently, ad networks provide choices in developer-facing dashboards that control the types […]

Abstract We investigate the privacy compliance processes followed by developers of child-directed mobile apps. While children’s online privacy laws have existed for decades in the US, prior research found relatively low rates of compliance. Yet, little is known about how compliance issues come to exist and how compliance processes can be improved to address them. […]

AbstractIntelligent voice assistants may soon become proactive, offering suggestions without being directly invoked. Such behavior increases privacy risks, since proactive operation requires continuous monitoring of conversations. To mitigate this problem, our study proposes and evaluates one potential privacy control, in which the assistant requests permission for the information it wishes to use immediately after hearing […]

AbstractSmart home cameras raise privacy concerns in part because they frequently collect data not only about the primary users who deployed them but also other parties—who may be targets of intentional surveillance or incidental bystanders. Domestic employees working in smart homes must navigate a complex situation that blends privacy and social norms for homes, workplaces, […]

AbstractWith the growing smartphone penetration rate, smartphone settings remain one of the main models for information privacy and security controls. Yet, their usability is largely understudied, especially with respect to the usability impact on underrepresented socio-economic and low-tech groups. In an online survey with 178 users, we find that many people are not aware of […]

AbstractAugmented reality (AR), and specifically mobile augmented reality (MAR), gained much public attention after the success of Pokémon Go in 2016, and since then has found application in online games, social media, entertainment, real estate, interior design, and other services. MAR apps are highly dependent on real time context-specific information provided by the different sensors […]

Benjamin Andow, Samin Yaseer Mahmud, Justin Whitaker, William Enck, Bradley Reaves, Kapil Singh, and Serge Egelman. Actions Speak Louder than Words: Entity-Sensitive Privacy Policy and Data Flow Analysis with POLICHECK. In Proceedings of the 29th USENIX Security Symposium. USENIX Assoc., Berkeley, CA, USA. 2020.