Author: serge

Deployment of Source Address Validation by Network Operators: A Randomized Control Trial (Oakland ’22)

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 […]

Privacy Champions in Software Teams: Understanding Their Motivations, Strategies, and Challenges (CHI ’21)

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 […]

Deciding on Personalized Ads: Nudging Developers About User Privacy (SOUPS ’21)

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 […]

Developers Say the Darnedest Things: Privacy Compliance Processes Followed by Developers of Child-Directed Apps (PETS ’22)

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. […]

Runtime Permissions for Privacy in Proactive Intelligent Assistants (SOUPS ’22)

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 […]

Balancing Power Dynamics in Smart Homes: Nannies’ Perspectives on How Cameras Reflect and Affect Relationships (SOUPS ’22)

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, […]

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We welcome students from any major and experience — not just CS or EE. Many of our projects involve human computer interaction (HCI) research, including quantitative and qualitative social science and cognitive science methods. Non-technical and technical students interested in conducting research in usable security and privacy, please say hi! Berkeley students interested in getting involved can […]

Users’ Expectations About and Use of Smartphone Privacy and Security Settings (CHI ’22)

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 […]

Evaluating and Redefining Smartphone Permissions with Contextualized Justifications for Mobile Augmented Reality Apps (SOUPS ’21)

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 […]

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Entity-Sensitive Privacy Policy and Data Flow Analysis with PoliCheck (USENIX Sec ’20)

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.