Title: Measuring and Improving Security and Privacy on the Web: Case Studies with QR Codes, Third-Party Tracking, and Archives
Advisors: Yoshi Kohno and Franzi Roesner
Supervisory Committee: Yoshi Kohno (co-Chair), Franzi Roesner (co-Chair), David McDonald (GSR, HCDE), and Arvind Krishnamurthy
Abstract: The web is deeply integrated into the economic, governmental, and social fabrics of our society, and it promises to help fulfill people’s diverse and critical needs easier, cheaper, faster, and more democratically. However, to fulfill these promises, we will need to study the security and privacy implications of the web and its surrounding technologies, and ensure that security and privacy are incorporated into their future evolution. I will present measurement and analysis work from my PhD examining the web and a set of the web’s sister technologies, forming insights and foundations for the ways that we can make the web more secure and privacy preserving. I identify and quantify current, past, and future properties of the web which are critical to its ability to provide security and privacy to its users, and synthesize lessons from these measurements and analyses which aim to guide the future designers and regulators of technologies surrounding the web in ensuring that it serves the needs of all who use it. Specifically, I will present longitudinal measurements of third-party web tracking using a novel measurement technique, as well as analyses of the security of web archives against malicious manipulation and of the global use of QR codes.