Third-party advertisers track the behavior and learn much information users on the Web. The goal of this project is to better learn what advertisers are doing with the information they receive to help users understand the privacy implications. The primary goal of this project is to use and develop tools for automated testing and analysis.
Suggested Background: Familiarity with Webware and Networking.
This area has many potential directions centered around better understanding network application performance and learning more about what users are interested in. One direction is to explore active measurement of Internet activity through Javascript extensions to a browser. Another direction might involve the design of a game to measure network performance.
Suggested Background: Familiarity with Webware, Networking and Operating Systems.
This project looks to explore the use and accuracy of Geo-IP services that map IP addresses to geographic locations. We would examine for both traditional browsers as well as for smart phone devices. Another direction to explore is what users can do to protect their location beyond using a proxy.
Suggested Background: Familiarity with Webware, Networking and Operating Systems.
Many privacy protection mechanisms exist on the Web today, such as not accepting third-party cookies, blocking third-party content, opting out from tracking and use of anonymizing proxies. However users do not always understand how these mechanisms interact with each other and what privacy protection "outcomes" are actually implemented with their use. This project will explore the interaction between mechanisms and outcomes along with user perception of this interaction. It will also explore alternate means for users to specify what information they are will to share with third parties relative to the services that they receive.
Suggested Background: Interest in Web and online privacy issues.
Virtually all Web sites have a privacy policy or guidelines that among other topics, specifies how the site will handle user information it receives in terms of sharing it with other entities. Previous work has shown that some amount of user information is shared with third-party entities from first-party sites. This project will examine whether this sharing is consistent with the privacy policies of these first-party sites.
Suggested Background: Interest in Web and online privacy issues.
The primary means to acquire new talent in Pro Football is via a draft of college players. Pundits typically rush to assign "grades" for each team's draft performance, but the real test of success must wait for a few years to see how the talent pans out. This project will seek to develop measures of cost and success then statistically analyze these measures to evaluate the success of talent acquisition strategies of each team. Such an approach could allow teams to apply changes to their approach moving forward or could be applied to other professional sports.
Suggested Background: Interest in sports and statistics.