Team for Research in
Ubiquitous Secure Technology

Citation
Umesh Shankar. "Better web browser privacy using automation". Talk or presentation, 7, March, 2006.

Abstract
Many existing computer security systems often have powerful policy languages that allow great flexibility and control, but are hard to use. A real-world analogy is a home alarm system with sophisticated sensors but with an inscrutable control panel. In each case, the result is the same: users become frustrated and bypass the security mechanism: functionality wins over privacy. The causes of the usability failures are manifold; policies may be complicated, and people are not supplied relevant information to make their decisions.

I will be talking about ongoing work in a visible area: web browser privacy. We propose a new set of automation mechanisms for handling browser cookies that attempts to simultaneously decrease the burden on users and increase the accuracy and precision of the resulting cookie policy. We also have implemented a single-click error recovery mechanism. We tackle several challenging subproblems on the way.

Electronic downloads

• UmeshShankar_BetterWebBrowserPrivacyUsingAutomation_TrustSeminar_3_7_06.ppt · application/vnd.ms-powerpoint · 202 kbytes

• HTML

  Umesh Shankar. <a
  href="http://www.truststc.org/pubs/35.html"
  ><i>Better web browser privacy using
  automation</i></a>, Talk or presentation,  7,
  March, 2006.

• Plain text

  Umesh Shankar. "Better web browser privacy using
  automation". Talk or presentation,  7, March, 2006.

• BibTeX

  @presentation{Shankar06_BetterWebBrowserPrivacyUsingAutomation,
      author = {Umesh Shankar},
      title = {Better web browser privacy using automation},
      day = {7},
      month = {March},
      year = {2006},
      abstract = {Many existing computer security systems often have
                powerful policy languages that allow great
                flexibility and control, but are hard to use. A
                real-world analogy is a home alarm system with
                sophisticated sensors but with an inscrutable
                control panel. In each case, the result is the
                same: users become frustrated and bypass the
                security mechanism: functionality wins over
                privacy. The causes of the usability failures are
                manifold; policies may be complicated, and people
                are not supplied relevant information to make
                their decisions. <p>I will be talking about
                ongoing work in a visible area: web browser
                privacy. We propose a new set of automation
                mechanisms for handling browser cookies that
                attempts to simultaneously decrease the burden on
                users and increase the accuracy and precision of
                the resulting cookie policy. We also have
                implemented a single-click error recovery
                mechanism. We tackle several challenging
                subproblems on the way. },
      URL = {http://www.truststc.org/pubs/35.html}
  }
  

Posted by Christopher Brooks on 7 Mar 2006.
Groups: trustseminar
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