In Cityware we envisage a world in which users interact with electronic applications and services embedded in urban environments. Those interactions potentially involve threats against the users' privacy and security -- threats which are a potential barrier to use. Our objectives are to understand those threats and implement practical mechanisms to defend users against them, while finding a satisfactory trade-off against other aspects of the users urban lives, including convenience and social acceptability. An important aspect of that trade-off is the trust that users do or do not place in the physical world and the electronic services around them.
We are carrying out three main activities to achieve our objectives: A threat analysis for services in urban environments, including users accessing services provided in social spaces such as shops and restaurants, and users engaging in peer-to-peer interactions in social or public spaces, e.g. games.
A trust analysis: a deepening of our understanding of user requirements, perceptions and reasoning about trust- and risk-related issues in urban social and public spaces, involving both peer-to-peer interactions and interactions with hosted services.
Deriving techniques for securing users against the attacks identified in the threat analysis, integrated with the urban lifestyle factors identified in the trust analysis. This will lead to new security protocols and to design implications for spaces, architectural features, devices, and physical tokens of services.
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