Data-driven networking research

We in Google's various networking teams would like to increase our collaborations with academic researchers related to data-driven networking research. There are some significant constraints on our ability to directly share data, which are not always widely-understood in the academic community; this document provides a brief summary. We describe some models which can work - primarily, interns and visiting scientists working temporarily as employees, which simplifies the handling of some confidentiality and privacy issues. We describe some specific areas where we would welcome proposals to work within those models.

Avoidance of Cybersecurity Threats with the Deployment of a Web-Based Blockchain-Enabled Cybersecurity Awareness System

Modern information technology (IT) is well developed, and almost everyone uses the features of IT and services within the Internet. However, people are being affected due to cybersecurity threats. People can adhere to the recommended cybersecurity guidelines, rules, adopted standards, and cybercrime preventive measures to largely mitigate these threats. The ignorance of or lack of cybersecurity knowledge also causes a critical problem regarding confidentiality and privacy. It is not possible to fully avoid cybercrimes that often lead to sufficient business losses and spread forbidden themes (disgust, extremism, child porn, etc.). Therefore, to reduce the risk of cybercrimes, a web-based Blockchain-enabled cybersecurity awareness program (WBCA) process is introduced in this paper. The proposed WBCA trains users to improve their security skills. The proposed program helps with understanding the common behaviors of cybercriminals and improves user knowledge of cybersecurity hygiene, best cybersecurity practices, modern cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and trends. Furthermore, the proposed WBCA uses Blockchain technology to protect the program from potential threats. The proposed program is validated and tested using real-world cybersecurity topics with real users and cybersecurity experts. We anticipate that the proposed program can be extended to other domains, such as national or corporate courses, to increase the cybersecurity awareness level of users. A CentOS-based virtual private server is deployed for testing the proposed WBCA to determine its effectiveness. Finally, WBCA is also compared with other state-of-the-art web-based programs designed for cybersecurity awareness.

Avoidance of Cybersecurity Threats with the Deployment of a Web-based Blockchain-Enabled Cybersecurity Awareness Model

The ignorance of or lack of knowledge about cybersecurity aspects causes a critical problem regarding confidentiality and privacy. This security problem will continue to exist even if the user possesses less expertise in information security. The modern IT technologies are well developed, and almost everyone uses the features of IT technologies and services within the Internet. However, people are being affected due to cybersecurity threats. People can adhere to the recommended cybersecurity guidelines, rules, adopted standards, and cybercrime preventive measures. However, it is not possible to entirely avoid cybercrimes. Cybercrimes often lead to sufficient business losses and spread forbidden themes (hatred, terrorism, child porn, etc.). Therefore, to reduce the risk of cybercrimes, a web-based Blockchain-enabled cybersecurity awareness program (WBCA) process is introduced in this paper. The proposed web-based cybersecurity awareness program trains users to improve their security skills. The proposed program helps with understanding the common behaviors of cybercriminals and improves user knowledge of cybersecurity hygiene, best cybersecurity practices, modern cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and trends. Furthermore, the proposed WBCA uses the Blockchain technology to protect the model from the potential threats. The proposed model is validated and tested using real-world cybersecurity topics with real users and cybersecurity experts. We anticipate that the proposed program can be extended to other domains, such as national or corporate courses, to increase the cybersecurity awareness level of users.

Ethical Issues Concerning the Use of Data from Commercially Available Wearable Sensors in Children

Wearable and mobile technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last decade with technological advances creating a role from enhancing healthy living to monitoring and treating disease. However, the discussion about the ethical use of such commercial technology in the community, especially in minors, is lacking behind. In this paper, we first summarize the major ethical concerns that arise from the usage of commercially available wearable technology in children, with a focus on smart watches, highlighting issues around the consent process, mitigation of risk and potential confidentiality and privacy issues, as well as the potential for therapeutic misconceptions when used without medical advice. Then through a relevant thought experiment we move on to outline some further ethical concerns that are connected to the use of wearables by minors, to wit the issue of informed consent in the case of minors, forcing them to live in the spotlight, and compromising their right to an open future. We conclude with the view that mitigating potential pitfalls and enhancing the benefits of wearable technology especially for minors requires brave and comprehensive moral debates.

The legislative support and features of personal data localization: best practices of foreign experience

The global trends in the localization of personal data are considered. Peculiarities of localization of personal data in some foreign countries (EU, USA, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russian Federation) are investigated. Some aspects of the storage, processing and transfer of personal data within the jurisdiction of states are summarized. The legislative support of penalty sledges for violation of regulatory requirements for localization of personal data, their confidentiality and privacy is detailed. The positive aspects and achievements of using the world “InCountry” service are identified. The peculiarities of outsourcing of personal data transfer are regulated. The directions of improvement of the domestic legislation in the field of personal data localization are outlined.

Remote Interviews and Visual Timelines with Patients: Lessons Learned

This article aims to support the design of remote user studies in the healthcare and well-being field. We introduce lessons learned from conducting remote interviews and using visual timelines as pretasks involving patients from two eHealth projects. Based on our experience, we conclude that remote interviews and visual timelines can provide rich data about user needs. However, careful planning is required. Building trust, rapport, confidentiality, and privacy requires extra effort from the researcher in studies involving sensitive topics. In this paper, we present a list of practical tips for planning qualitative health-related user studies.

Performance Analysis of Cascaded Hybrid Symmetric Encryption Models

Over a few years, there is rapid increase of exchange of data over the net has brought data confidentiality and its privacy to the fore front. Data confidentiality can be achieved by implementing cryptography algorithms during transmission of data which confirms that data remains secure and protected over an insecure network channel. In order to ensure data confidentiality and privacy, cryptography service encryption is used which makes data in unreadable form while the reverse process rearranges data in readable form and known as decryption. All encryption algorithms are intended to provide confidentiality to data, but their performance varies depending on many variables such as key size, type, number of rounds, complexity and data size used. In addition, although some encryption algorithms outperform others, they have been found to be prone to particular attacks. This paper reviews and summarizes the various common hybrid cascaded n-tier encryption models. Additionally, this paper compares and analyzes the performance of common hybrid cascaded 2-tier and 3-tier encryption models obtained during simulation based on encryption/decryption time, avalanche effect and throughput. The models compared with AES are 2-tier models (AES-TWOFISH, AES-BLOWFISH, TWOFISH-AES, BLOWFISH-AES, AES-SERPENT and SERPENT-TWOFISH) and 3-tier models (DES-BLOWFISH-AES, AES-TWOFISH-SERPENT and SERPENT-TWOFISH-AES). The hybrid cascaded model like AES-TWOFISH, AES-BLOWFISH and SERPENT-TWOFISH-AES are better hybrid models with respect to throughput and avalanche effect.