A Collaborative Access Control Model for Shared Items in Online Social Networks

The recent emergence of online social networks (OSNs) has changed the communication behaviors of thousand of millions of users. OSNs have become significant platforms for connecting users, sharing information, and a valuable source of private and sensitive data about individuals. While OSNs insert constantly new social features to increase the interaction between users, they, unfortunately, offer primitive access control mechanisms that place the burden of privacy policy configuration solely on the holder who has shared data in her/his profile regardless of other associated users, who may have different privacy preferences. Therefore, current OSN privacy mechanisms violate the privacy of all stakeholders by giving one user full authority over another’s privacy settings, which is extremely ineffective. Based on such considerations, it is essential to develop an effective and flexible access control model for OSNs, accommodating the special administration requirements coming from multiple users having a variety of privacy policies over shared items. In order to solve the identified problems, we begin by analyzing OSN scenarios where at least two users should be involved in the access control process. Afterward, we propose collaborative access control framework that enables multiple controllers of the shared item to collaboratively specify their privacy settings and to resolve the conflicts among co-controllers with different requirements and desires. We establish our conflict resolution strategy’s rules to achieve the desired equilibrium between the privacy of online users and the utility of sharing data in OSNs. We present a policy specification scheme for collaborative access control and authorization administration. Based on these considerations, we devise algorithms to achieve a collaborative access control policy over who can access or disseminate the shared item and who cannot. In our dissertation, we also present the implementation details of a proof-of-concept prototype of our approach to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an approach. With our approach, sharing and interconnection among users in OSNs will be promoted in a more trustworthy environment

Trust and transparency in an age of surveillance

Investigating the theoretical and empirical relationships between transparency and trust in the context of surveillance, this volume argues that neither transparency nor trust provides a simple and self-evident path for mitigating the negative political and social consequences of state surveillance practices. Dominant in both the scholarly literature and public debate is the conviction that transparency can promote better-informed decisions, provide greater oversight, and restore trust damaged by the secrecy of surveillance. The contributions to this volume challenge this conventional wisdom by considering how relations of trust and policies of transparency are modulated by underlying power asymmetries, sociohistorical legacies, economic structures, and institutional constraints. They study trust and transparency as embedded in specific sociopolitical contexts to show how, under certain conditions, transparency can become a tool of social control that erodes trust, while mistrust - rather than trust - can sometimes offer the most promising approach to safeguarding rights and freedom in an age of surveillance. The first book addressing the interrelationship of trust, transparency, and surveillance practices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of surveillance studies as well as appeal to an interdisciplinary audience given the contributions from political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and civil society

Privacy and Power in Social Space: Facebook

In this thesis I examine the impact of interaction and participation on Facebook between private individuals and certain hierarchical groups in society, particularly with regard to individual privacy; consider the structure of Facebook’s privacy programming; and seek to establish where the balance of power lies between private individuals and commercial, political and media organisations. I make reference to Foucault’s theory of power, Bourdieu’s theories of power in social space and habitus and Althusser’s theory of interpellation as I record my research. This thesis is a qualitative research project, and I employ Critical Discourse Analysis as the principal research methodology. I focus on four cases studies: Facebook both as the internet platform which facilitates such interaction and the company which operates it; the developers of applications, such as online games, which are mounted on the platform; the network’s use by political parties and their leaders during the UK 2010 General Election campaign; and traditional media platforms as represented by two television annual ‘events’. My findings relate the manner in which individual users are constantly prompted to upload content, principally personal information, thoughts, preferences and relationships to the network, and simultaneously are pressurised into granting access to this information as they seek to fully participate on the social platform. This pressure is applied through applications that are mounted on the platform by commercial, media and political organisations, and I find that Facebook’s affordances to applications developers are instrumental in this process. My research associates these processes with the aforementioned theories of Foucault, Althusser and Bourdieu. My conclusion is that while Facebook continually revises its privacy policy to grant private individuals control over the content, that is the personal information, they upload to the social network, access to this information is a prerequisite for their full participation in the network. Facebook’s continuous introduction of new programmes ensures that private individuals have to choose between interaction and participation on the social network, or exclusion as access to many of the activities it offers is conditional on third party access to their personal information. Further pressure to grant access to the required information is applied through the ability of organisations to feature photographs of users’ Friends who are already using the relevant application. The processes indicate that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is slowly progressing his aim to place the social network at the centre of a newly structured Web based on private individuals

Trust and Transparency in an Age of Surveillance

Investigating the theoretical and empirical relationships between transparency and trust in the context of surveillance, this volume argues that neither transparency nor trust provides a simple and self-evident path for mitigating the negative political and social consequences of state surveillance practices. Dominant in both the scholarly literature and public debate is the conviction that transparency can promote better-informed decisions, provide greater oversight, and restore trust damaged by the secrecy of surveillance. The contributions to this volume challenge this conventional wisdom by considering how relations of trust and policies of transparency are modulated by underlying power asymmetries, sociohistorical legacies, economic structures, and institutional constraints. They study trust and transparency as embedded in specific sociopolitical contexts to show how, under certain conditions, transparency can become a tool of social control that erodes trust, while mistrust—rather than trust—can sometimes offer the most promising approach to safeguarding rights and freedom in an age of surveillance. The first book addressing the interrelationship of trust, transparency, and surveillance practices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of surveillance studies as well as appeal to an interdisciplinary audience given the contributions from political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and civil society

Deception: Russiagate and the new cold war

The ‘Russiagate’ affair is one of the most far-reaching political events of recent years. But what exactly was the nature and extent of Russian interference in the campaign that led to the presidency of Donald J. Trump? Richard Sakwa sets out the dramatic series of events that combined to create Russiagate and examines whether together they form a persuasive account of Russia’s role in the extraordinary 2016 American election. Offering a meticulous account of the multiple layers in play, his authoritative analysis challenges the claims of Russian interference and collusion. As we enter into a new cold war, this myth-busting, accessible and balanced account is essential reading to understand contemporary East-West relations

To Play or Not to Play: Non/Participation in Eve Online

This dissertation addresses a gap in the academic study of digital games whereby investigations remain focused on current players and the experiences of former or non-players are rarely accounted for. Using EVE Online (EVE), a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) known for its difficult learning curve and homogenous community as a case study, I conducted an investigation of who does/does not play this particular game and their stated reasons for playing or not. I argue that while EVE is positioned in the MMOG market as a sandbox style game where in-game activities are only limited by a players imagination, in reality only a very particular type of play (and player) is publically acknowledged by EVEs developer (CCP Games), the gaming enthusiast press, and academics investigations of this game, emphasizing just how little is known about who plays EVE beyond the stereotypical imagined player. Drawing on literature from leisure studies to articulate a framework for exploring barriers/constraints to gameplay and theoretically informed by feminist theories of technology, I conducted an Internet-based survey to capture the thoughts and experiences of current, former, and non-EVE players. A total of 981 participants completed the survey. In my analysis of open-ended responses, I found that current players described the game in a way that emphasized its exceptionality, relied heavily on jargon, and assumed their reader was already familiar with EVE, its player community, and its surrounding norms and conventions. Non-players who were familiar with the game described their perceptions of EVE being an unwelcoming community meant they had opted out of playing without ever downloading the trial. Former players fell into three groupings: ex-players who had permanently quit EVE, a group who want to play but felt forced to take a temporary break due to external constraints (e.g. exams at school or financial limitations), and a third group would consider returning if changes to their personal circumstances and/or the game happened in future. Ultimately this research complicates what it means to play or not play MMOG, opening up avenues for future research about how access and barriers to digital game play inevitably shift over time

Perceção pelos alunos da sua pegada digital : estudo de caso com um curso profissional numa escola secundária do interior centro

Este trabalho é o relatório final da Unidade Curricular de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada e Relatório do Mestrado em Ensino de Informática, e pretende analisar de forma reflexiva o percurso realizado neste ano destinado à inserção na prática profissional. Primeiramente é feito um enquadramento teórico da profissão professor e da bagagem de que um professor se deve equipar para o seu exercício, sendo abordadas cinco dimensões de competências atribuídas à carreira docente, a saber: a dimensão de perfil geral de desempenho, a dimensão profissional, social e ética, a dimensão de desenvolvimento do ensino e da aprendizagem, a dimensão de participação na escola e de relação com a comunidade e a dimensão de desenvolvimento profissional ao longo da vida. Seguidamente é apresentado o desenvolvimento das atividades inerentes à Prática de Ensino Supervisionada, num capítulo em que se faz a contextualização do meio envolvente da Escola Secundária de Arganil e da turma do curso profissional atribuída e se descrevem as atividades desenvolvidas no Agrupamento de Escolas de Arganil. Na última parte é apresentada a investigação desenvolvida em contexto escolar, bem como as motivações que a suscitaram. A questão de investigação é: “os alunos têm perceção da sua pegada digital?”. Através de inquérito foram obtidas respostas sobre o tipo de publicações, a dependência das redes sociais, as normas de privacidade utilizadas, a dimensão social dos alunos, o acompanhamento dos pais nas redes sociais, os dados de perfil mais utilizados, o cuidado inerente com a publicação de dados pessoais, nível de consciência relativa à publicação da informação. Finalmente, apresentam-se algumas conclusões.This paper is the final report of the curricular unit de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada and, in a reflexive way, it has the intent to analyze the course taken in this year for the professional practice. First, a theoretical background of teaching of the M.Sc. course in Informatics Teaching, is made integration and it’s also described the experience that a teacher must have for his practice. For that purpose, five dimensions of competence on the teaching career are discussed, namely: general profile of performance; professional, social and ethical; teaching and learning development; participation at school and relationships with the community; and professional development throughout life. Then, it is also presented the development of activities related to Supervised Teaching Practices, including the context of the environment of the school, Escola Secundária de Arganil, as well as, the class assigned to the teacher, a professional course, and finally the activities in the Arganil group schools are described. In the final part the developed investigation in a school context is presented, along with its motivations. The investigation question is: "have the students perceptions of their digital footprint?” ”Are the students aware of their digital footprint?”. Through survey, responses were obtained about the type of publications, the addiction on social networks, the privacy rules used, the students’ social dimension, parental monitoring on social networks, the most frequent data-profile used, the inherent care on personal data publication, the awareness level on the publication of information. Finally, we present some conclusions