Friday, March 6, 2009

Security

Usability and security--- are they compatible?
Why have a password at all to access computers?
Ease of use and privacy: are they also compatible?

It appears there has to be a trade off between usabilility on the one hand and security and privacy protection on the other hand.

At the same time, security and privacy protection technologies have become so cumbersome for the user. It is time we made security and privacy technologies usable too.

Two stalwarts who have worked in these areas are Dr Simon Garfinkel of MIT and Dr.Lorie Craner of Carnegie Mellon University.

Here is a link to CUPS (Carnegie Mellon University Usable Privacy & Security) website :  http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/

Joseph Ponnoly

3 comments:

  1. Koobface, Other Worms Target Facebook Friends (NewsFactor) - Yahoo News:

    http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nf/20090305/tc_nf/65095

    -jp

    ReplyDelete
  2. This indicates that TRUST issues are an important factor in human computer interactions. This becomes all the more important in web transactions.

    jp

    ReplyDelete
  3. As someone said, all computing is for people. Thus human computer interaction becomes a key component of computing. This makes design of user-centered computing important. HCI is user centered computing.

    Then the question arises: Who is the user? There are various types of users-- from the illiterate to the expert user. So interaction needs vary depending on the type of user and the context of computing.

    -Joseph Ponnoly

    ReplyDelete