NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Leveraging Personalized Internet Services to Combat Online Trolling

如今，几乎用户的每一次浏览点击都被与各种在线服务（例如，广告网络、在线社交网络、电子商务平台）相关的众多跟踪器收集。用户经常对缺乏隐私和对个人数据的控制表示担忧。然而，尽管在揭露和控制这种普遍行为方面做出了大量努力，但现实情况是，用户不断接受更新的在线隐私政策，这反过来又允许收集更多的个人数据。本项目探索了对这种广泛的跟踪基础设施的再利用，以造福用户自身和网络服务，其目标是防止在线拖钓（各种团体通过留下有偏见的、虚假的、误导性的和不真实的评论，然后人为地扩大其评级，从而在互联网上部署影响公众舆论的策略）。该项目旨在展示如何将跟踪基础设施作为用户的“指纹”重新使用，从而为第三方网站提供一种轻量级且保护隐私的身份识别形式。智力价值：更详细地说，该项目探讨了是否有可能利用无处不在的用户在线跟踪来直接造福用户自己。尽管在过去的十年中，几乎每一次浏览器点击都被众多的在线追踪器监控，但用户在使用互联网时往往很难证明自己的身份和独特性。另一方面，许多依赖于开放成员关系的系统经常成为网络攻击的目标，通常是通过多重身份（Sybil）攻击。有组织的网络钓鱼已经成为当今互联网的一个严重问题；一些人认为它会对社会产生深远的影响。该项目正在开发一个系统，该系统将直接利用在线跟踪器的工作来记录和解释用户的行为。关键思想是利用在线跟踪器实时生成的随时可用的个性化内容，作为一种手段，以无缝和保护隐私的方式验证在线用户的独特性。这种个性化的内容将由用户收集，剥离标识内容并上传，用于构建用户的多跟踪器矢量表示。然后，向量表示将作为每个用户的唯一“指纹”，使攻击者很难看起来好像他们是许多不同的用户，从而减轻了许多钓鱼攻击。更广泛的影响：该项目有能力通过授权互联网社区打击在线拖钓问题产生重大影响。正在开发的系统不仅将帮助众多在线社区重新获得没有网络喷子的环境，而且还将重新利用已经存在的广泛的跟踪基础设施，为最终用户和网站提供切实的好处。pi计划设计和传播基于个性化的反钓鱼系统作为开源软件，这将使有效的钓鱼检测和反钓鱼方法和系统成为可能。教育是该项目不可分割的一部分，项目负责人计划利用现有的机构和特殊项目，从代表性不足的群体中招收学生。

Today, almost every browsing click that users make is collected by numerous trackers associated with a variety of online services (e.g., advertising networks, online social networks, e-commerce platforms). Users have often expressed concern about the lack of privacy and control over their personal data. Nonetheless, despite a substantial effort to expose and control this prevalent behavior, the reality is that users keep accepting updated online privacy policies, which in turn grant the gathering of more personal data. This project explores re-using this extensive tracking infrastructure for the benefits of both the users themselves and web services, with a goal of preventing online trolling (scenarios in which various groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the Internet, by leaving biased, false, misleading, and inauthentic comments, and then artificially amplifying their ratings). The project aims to show how the tracking infrastructure can be re-used as a user "fingerprint", allowing a lightweight and privacy-preserving form of identification for third-party web sites. Intellectual Merit: In more detail, the project explores whether it is possible to utilize the ubiquitous online tracking of users for the direct benefit of the users themselves. Despite the fact that almost every browser click made over the last decade has been monitored by numerous online trackers, users often have a hard time proving their identity and uniqueness while using the Internet. On the other hand, many systems that rely upon open membership are often targets of online trolling, often via multiple-identity (Sybil) attacks. Organized trolling has become a serious problem in today's Internet; some argue that it can have a profound impact on the society. The project is developing a system that would take direct advantage of the work online trackers do to record and interpret users' behavior. The key idea is to use the readily-available personalized content---generated by online trackers in real-time---as a means to verify an online user's uniqueness in a seamless and privacy-preserving manner. This personalized content, which would be collected by the users, stripped of identifying content, and uploaded, would be used to construct a multi-tracker vector representation of the user. The vector representation would then serve as a unique "fingerprint" of each user, making it difficult for attackers to appear as if they were many distinct users, thereby mitigating many trolling attacks.Broader Impacts: The project has the capacity to make a significant impact by empowering the Internet community to combat the online trolling problem. The system under development will not only help numerous online communities regain trolling-free environments, but also re-use the extensive tracking infrastructure that already exists to provide tangible benefits for both end users and web sites. The PIs plan to design and disseminate personalization-based counter-trolling system as open-source software, which will enable effective trolling detection and counter-trolling methods and systems. Education is an integral part of the project, and the PIs plan to leverage existing institutional and special programs to recruit students from underrepresented groups into the project.