Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Ubiquitous network connectivity has made possible the deployment of network services that can be accessedany time from anywhere. The goal of this research is the design, implementation, and evaluation ofprivacy-enhancing technologies that allow people to benefit from this new communication paradigm, butwithout these people having to worry about possible privacy violations. The proposed research has four mainthrusts: 1) developing practical protocols for accessing data stores such that the owner of a data store cannotlearn which of his/her data records are being accessed. For example, these protocols will allow people to learninformation relevant to their current location without revealing their (maybe sensitive) location to theinformation provider; 2) developing efficient protocols for accessing a network service such that a user's IPaddress will remain hidden from the service. An IP address can reveal sensitive information about a user, suchas his/her location or company association, so our protocols will protect the user's privacy; 3) developingprivacy-enhancing technologies for location-based social networking services. Our protocols will allow nearbyusers to interact with each other. However, as opposed to traditional social networking sites, our protocols willnot require a centralized site that can continuously learn detailed information about its users (e.g., theirlocation); 4) developing a privacy-preserving architecture for location proofs. Location proofs enable people toprove that they are (or were) at a particular location, which makes possible applications such as location-basedaccess control or location-based deals. Our architecture will allow people to collect proofs without having toworry about becoming trackable. Location intelligence, which is the provisioning of information about specificlocations to customers, has been getting much commercial attention recently. For example, our industrypartner, Pitney Bowes, offers such a service. With the help of the technologies developed in the proposedresearch, it will become possible to provide location intelligence services in both a more privacy-friendly wayand a more secure way, which in turn will make these services more attractive and profitable.