Configurable dynamic privacy for pervasive sensor networks

Ubiquitous computing sensor networks have greatly augmented the functionality of interactive media systems by adding the ability to capture and store activity-related information. Analyzing the information recorded from pervasive sensor networks can provide insight about human behavior for better personalized system services, as well as richer media content and social communication. With these increased capabilities, serious concerns which create great obstacles to the deployment of such network are raised with regard to privacy and boundaries. However, there exist no real data currently about privacy in pervasive media networks and most studies that have been made so far are speculative. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a configurable infrastructure that can protect users' dynamic levels of privacy in a pervasive sensor network. Through an active badge system, users have different options to disable each type of data transmission. This work evaluates approaches for privacy protection through conducting an extensive user study in an actual ubiquitous invasive sensing environment to obtain feedback via sensor system data and questionnaires and correlates that information for future reference in the design of privacy-protected ubiquitous sensor networks. Results from the user study indicated that an active badge for on-site control, especially periodically broadcast RF beacon for privacy control, is the most effective and acceptable method.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Gong, Nan-Wei

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joseph A. Paradiso.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55190

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/55190