Security and Privacy Protection for Social Computing

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We increasingly store personal information on various digital platforms. Of particular concern are the emergence of social computing platforms (e.g., Facebook, Foursquare) as custodians of information about our private and social life, as well as the shifting culture of the next generation to willingly disclose the minute details of their personal lives via such platforms. These platforms present unique security and privacy challenges that are not addressed by classical protection technologies.The study of Access Control involves the articulation and analysis of protection models for regulating access to information, and the design of mechanisms and technologies for realizing these models. In this proposed research program, I will explore access control innovations that are motivated by the novel security and privacy challenges of social computing. This proposed research program has three objectives. First, it aims at devising innovative protection technologies for addressing the unique security and privacy challenges in social computing platforms. Examples include technologies for the prevention of inference attacks by Facebook applications, protection technologies for controlling access to resources that affect the privacy of multiple parties (e.g., photo tagging), and assessment of privacy risks in geo-social network systems (e.g., Foursquare). Second, this research program aims at formulating mathematical models for improving our understanding of emerging social computing paradigms. Examples include building mathematical theories for modelling social contracts in online communities (e.g., Wikipedia), as well as formulation of mathematical models for the authorization mechanisms of geo-social network systems. A third objective of this research program is to devise supporting technologies that would make it easier for users to interact with advanced access control models for social computing. An example is to design visual formalisms so that users may draw diagrams to specify social contracts for an online community.