NetSE: Medium: Collaborative Research: Auditing Internet Content for Credibility, Fairness, and Privacy

NetSE：媒介：协作研究：审核互联网内容的可信度、公平性和隐私

• 批准号: 1064595
• 负责人: Aleksandar Kuzmanovic
• 金额: $ 54.95万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2016-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1064595&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NetSE; Medium; Collaborative; Research; Auditing

Millions of users are accessing a portion of billions of Web pages and other content on the Internet on a daily basis. While the networking research community and the public in general are well-aware of the net neutrality problem, i.e., how to develop regulatory policies and auditing mechanisms to prevent Internet Service Providers from discriminating against various applications, very little effort is invested in enabling content neutrality. In particular, it is not a secret that almost every browsing click we make is collected by either Web- or ISP-based 'information collectors and aggregators', and that our profiles are used for online advertising. Still, no public auditing mechanisms, capable of detecting and informing end users about such practices, exist in this emerging area. Take search engines as another example. How does one know that information available on these services is not biased (or will become biased in the future) for commercial, political, or any other reason? More generally, no public auditing systems are capable of monitoring the scope and effectiveness of advertising or spam campaigns on the Internet. The PIs argue that all these questions fundamentally affect fairness at all levels, information credibility, and user privacy, all of which have significant relevance for the future development of the Internet and beyond.The PIs will build a set of methodologies and tools unified in a system capable of (i) enabling auditing mechanisms for the Web advertising domain, (ii) monitoring search engines? services and revealing their neutrality, and (iii) independently determining a Web site's popularity and checking for the truthfulness of advertised popularity. Further, the PIs plan to deploy the developed system on the PlanetLab wide area network testbed to perform long term monitoring of content neutrality in the Internet.Broader Impact: By informing the public of how online advertisers and search engines behave, the auditing system will enable fair competition and preclude monopolies, oligopolies, or collusions, eventually helping to improve online information credibility and user privacy. Even if no bias nor privacy-violating practices were to exist in today's Internet (unfortunately, the PI's preliminary results show that this is not the case), the auditing system and methodologies will always be a barrier for anyone who would believe that applying such approaches might be done without public knowledge and repercussions. By exposing biased content behavior, the auditing system will be capable of revealing discriminating acts that can happen for commercial, social, political, religious, or any other reason, ultimately facilitating the development of free and open society. The PIs will design and disseminate easy-to-use browser extensions and plug-ins that will be capable of assisting end users in detecting content neutrality violations. Education is an integral part of this award. The insights and tools derived from this project will be integrated into the current undergraduate and graduate curricula.

数以百万计的用户每天访问互联网上数十亿网页和其他内容的一部分。虽然网络研究社区和公众普遍意识到网络中立性问题，即，如何制定监管政策和审计机制，以防止互联网服务提供商对各种应用程序的歧视，很少有努力投入到实现内容中立性。特别是，我们的每一次浏览点击几乎都被基于Web或ISP的“信息收集者和聚合者”收集，我们的个人资料被用于在线广告，这已经不是什么秘密了。在这一新兴领域，仍然没有能够发现并向最终用户通报这类做法的公共审计机制。再以搜索引擎为例。人们如何知道这些服务上提供的信息不会因商业、政治或任何其他原因而有偏见（或将来会有偏见）？更一般地说，没有任何公共审计系统能够监测互联网上广告或垃圾邮件活动的范围和有效性。PI认为，所有这些问题从根本上影响公平在各个层面上，信息的可信度，和用户隐私，所有这些都具有重大意义的未来发展的互联网和beyond.The PI将建立一套统一的方法和工具的系统能够（一）使审计机制的Web广告域，（二）监控搜索引擎？服务和揭示其中立性，以及（iii）独立确定一个网站的受欢迎程度和检查的真实性广告的受欢迎程度。更广泛的影响：通过告知公众在线广告商和搜索引擎的行为，审计系统将促进公平竞争，防止垄断、寡头垄断或串通，最终有助于提高在线信息的可信度和用户隐私。即使在今天的互联网中不存在偏见或侵犯隐私的做法（不幸的是，PI的初步结果显示情况并非如此），审计系统和方法将始终是任何人的障碍，他们认为应用这些方法可能会在没有公众知识和影响的情况下完成。通过揭露有偏见的内容行为，审计系统将能够揭示可能因商业、社会、政治、宗教或任何其他原因而发生的歧视行为，最终促进自由开放社会的发展。PI将设计和传播易于使用的浏览器扩展和插件，这些扩展和插件将能够帮助最终用户检测违反内容中立性的行为。教育是这个奖项的一个组成部分。从这个项目中获得的见解和工具将被纳入目前的本科和研究生课程。