Privacy and Security for Location-based Applications
Event details
| Date | 19.06.2012 |
| Hour | 14:00 › 15:00 |
| Speaker | Prof. Urs Hengartner, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
Recently, location-based applications have become popular, with applications like Foursquare or Yelp having hundreds of thousands of users. This trend has also highlighted several security and privacy challenges of these applications. I will focus on two such challenges in my talk. First, a user's location is a crucial factor for enabling these applications. Many applications rely on users to correctly report their location. However, if there is an incentive, users might lie about their location. A location proof architecture enables users to collect proofs for being at a location and applications to validate these proofs. It is essential that proof collection and validation do not violate user privacy. I will introduce a location proof architecture with user privacy as a key design component. Second, matchmaking is a crucial part of location-based social networking applications. It notifies users of nearby people who fulfil some criteria, such as having shared interests or friends, and who are therefore good candidates for being added to a user's social network. A danger of matchmaking is that malicious users may be able to learn any nearby user's profile. I will introduce a privacy-preserving matchmaking protocol for location-based social networking applications. The protocol lets a potentially malicious user learn only the interests (or some other traits) that he has in common with a nearby user, but no other interests. Finally, I will present an implementation and evaluation of our work on Nexus One smartphones and demonstrate that the work is practical.
Bio:
Urs Hengartner is an associate professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research interests are in information privacy and in computer and networks security. His current research goals are to increase the security of emerging computing environments, such as location-based services, mobile social networking, and electronic voting, and to design privacy-enhancing technologies for people who want to benefit from these environments. He has a degree in computer science from ETH Zurich and an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon.
Recently, location-based applications have become popular, with applications like Foursquare or Yelp having hundreds of thousands of users. This trend has also highlighted several security and privacy challenges of these applications. I will focus on two such challenges in my talk. First, a user's location is a crucial factor for enabling these applications. Many applications rely on users to correctly report their location. However, if there is an incentive, users might lie about their location. A location proof architecture enables users to collect proofs for being at a location and applications to validate these proofs. It is essential that proof collection and validation do not violate user privacy. I will introduce a location proof architecture with user privacy as a key design component. Second, matchmaking is a crucial part of location-based social networking applications. It notifies users of nearby people who fulfil some criteria, such as having shared interests or friends, and who are therefore good candidates for being added to a user's social network. A danger of matchmaking is that malicious users may be able to learn any nearby user's profile. I will introduce a privacy-preserving matchmaking protocol for location-based social networking applications. The protocol lets a potentially malicious user learn only the interests (or some other traits) that he has in common with a nearby user, but no other interests. Finally, I will present an implementation and evaluation of our work on Nexus One smartphones and demonstrate that the work is practical.
Bio:
Urs Hengartner is an associate professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His research interests are in information privacy and in computer and networks security. His current research goals are to increase the security of emerging computing environments, such as location-based services, mobile social networking, and electronic voting, and to design privacy-enhancing technologies for people who want to benefit from these environments. He has a degree in computer science from ETH Zurich and an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon.
Links
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- SuRI 2012
Contact
- Simone Muller