Usable Security

This talk discussed the effects of social indicators, such as crowds, empty spaces, or traces left behind by the presence of people, on user’s security decisions.  Sometimes people follow the norm they observe, and sometimes they intentionally avoid the popular choice.  Inspired by an earlier study demonstrating that users unintentionally shared sensitive files using P2P programs, the paper proposes using social navigation ideas to help users decide what to share.  Design possibilities include showing the patterns of conventional use and showing the activities of other users.  One design sketch uses a pile metaphor where piles of documents appear progressively more disheveled as they are downloaded more frequently by other users.

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