PASS

Privacy Architectures for System Services

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The proliferation of Internet services and, perhaps unavoidably, Internet crime, has left users more vulnerable than ever before. Taken in conjunction with the expanded deployment of wireless networks and the popularity of mobile devices, this trend is exerting tremendous pressure on user security. Due to the increased likelihood of communication monitoring, the issue of electronic privacy has of late attracted considerable attention. Unfortunately, implementing privacy in personal computer systems has traditionally been the domain of the paranoid computer specialist. In order for basic privacy to become pervasive among the non-technical user base, it must imitate the usage of other successful security (and other) services. There are a number of available tools that perform data scrubbing on a per file basis. The majority of these tools treat the file as a black box. For example, they will remove cookie, history, document history, log files, and preference files. These techniques work well when the user does not care about the posterity of the data, but they cannot address more complex information scrubbing where often the only course of action is manual removal. What is needed is a systematic way of handling personally identifying information, at every level of the user’s operating environment: the operating system, the application, and the network. Our goal in this project is to investigate and implement new paradigms for implementing privacy as a system service. The privacy service should automatically sanitize user data according to some predefined user preferences. Specifically it is the goal of this project to: 1. Investigate the various design options in architectures that provide privacy services. 2. Create the infrastructure necessary for carrying out the above work. 3. Leverage both the infrastructure and the results of the research work for the training of undergraduate and graduate students and other interested parties.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Blanket privacy measures on computers, such as removing cookies or browser information, are giving way to a much more sophisticated technology. Personal data will be safeguarded more effectively and selectively.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The popularity of internet-based services, wireless networks and mobile phone applications is leaving users more vulnerable to electronic crime. As electronic privacy becomes more important, the need for implementing privacy protocols in user technology also increases.

Current privacy tools on a personal computer, such as removing cookies and erasing browser preferences, already exist and are simple to apply. However, if the user wants to be more selective in what should be erased or protected, the issue becomes more complicated.

The EU-funded 'Privacy architectures for system services' (PASS) project is developing easy-to-use tools that apply safety measures not only within applications, but on operation systems and entire networks as well. The project is implementing privacy as a service or application that automatically 'scrubs' user data according to user preferences, monitoring the electronic environment and tracking personal identification data.

The system is being developed for both novice users and experts and differentiates between privacy requirements at different stages of a file's usage or lifecycle. For instance, idle files may be ignored until they become attachments in emails, where they are then cleansed of certain user information. A bank or trusted colleague may be enabled to view relevant data while an online forum may be denied.

Sophisticated methods for protecting the user's electronic environment from information leaks on to the Web are being developed by examining millions of documents online. The project is also developing security and privacy protocols that consider access rights and privacy-conscious data sharing in medical environments.

Having made good progress, the project team is now publishing and distributing its findings in global conferences and important journals. Such research will help firms develop new software that can give all users their desired level of privacy in an increasingly invasive high-tech world.