project proposal
TRANSCRIPT
Social security (new content starts at 29)
Alex Lambert
#1: “Thank the Spammers”
William James is an anD‐spam acDvist. In 2003, he wrote an essay, “Thank the Spammers”, about abuse of Internet resources:
“Then came the spammers. Because they abused the relays, like they abuse everything else, the relays had to be turned off. They found that they could abuse the relays and cost others hundreds or even thousands of dollars, but it prevented them from losing the $10 dialup account or free NetZero account…Old soVware which ran perfectly well had to be replaced just to close the hole…Yeah, thank the spammers for that.”
He submiZed to the FTC’s Spam Forum a list of 29 opportuniDes he feels “the spammers have ruined”
So what? “Thank the spammers” is a cop‐out.
This mess is really our (engineers’) fault.
We created an e‐mail system that provided incredible incenDves for abuse. We completely failed to consider the economic issue of how (ab)users would respond to these incenDves.
I’m not saying the spammers are without fault; that’s absurd. I’m saying the system provided aZracDve opportuniDes, and we shouldn’t be surprised that spammers took advantage of those opportuniDes.
#2: From my inbox From: Bruce Pacheco <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 8:56 AM Subject: Nie mehr zu frueh kommen? Nimm die Pille, sei kein Dummer, sonst schaffst du nie 'ne gute Nummer!
Meinung von unserem Kunden: Viagra wirkt Wunder! Sie ahnen nicht, wie glücklich ich bin. Viagra hat
mein Leben verändert. Endlich keine Angst mehr wegen der ErrekDon. Und auch das Problem mit dem vorzeiDgen Samenerguss ist weg.
Lust über zwei Stunden nicht zu kommen?
I don’t speak German, and I don’t need Viagra. I regularly get spam wriZen in Chinese and Russian.
So what?
This message was part of a completely untargeted blast.
Spamming is becoming more expensive (or, at least, we’re trying to make it more expensive.)
As this happens, you can expect to see beZer targeDng and messaging. (I’ve seen adverDsements for lists of doctors’ addresses.)
So we’re just seeing the infancy of spam right now. This is scary.
#3: From Facebook From: Facebook <[email protected]> Date: Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 4:02 PM Subject: Laurie Caires wrote on your Wall…
Laurie wrote on your Wall:
"HEY I JUST GOT MYSELF A FREE PS‐3 THE STEPS ARE EASY THIS IS SO COOL! ALL YOU GUYS HAVE TO DO IS SIGN UP BELOW hZp://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7760/gouar8.swf GET ONE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"
To see your Wall or to write on Laurie's Wall, follow the link below: hZp://www.facebook.com/n/?profile.php&id=1932892#wall
Thanks, The Facebook Team
In August, Laurie’s Facebook account was commandeered by a spammer, who used it to write on her friends’ walls.
So what?
Spam is maturing.
The spammers know that I’m (very) likely to read messages from my friends…
#4: Facebook applicaDon issues There are serious privacy issues with third‐party Facebook
applicaDons. (Hey, that’s my thesis!) From my IRB form: “In January 2008, Facebook had 68 million registered users and was
the fiVh most‐visited website in the world. Facebook allows its users to create online "profiles" with informaDon like their favorite books, their work history, their relaDonship status, and photographs…
…third‐party developers can access an unprecedented amount of sensiDve social data about their customers. Furthermore, applicaDons can oVen access data about users' friends and peers – even if those targets have not explicitly acknowledged or authorized this transfer. While Facebook does have policies governing applicaDon developers' use and storage of the data, their policies do not provide comprehensive protecDon for this sensiDve informaDon.”
So what?
Now it’s becoming even easier for third parDes to collect social data about me (including my interests, a list of my friends)…
#5: chi.mp
Someone on IRC sent me this link last week: chi.mp. It’s some sort of idenDty management service. On its front page, it rails against “walled garden” social networking sites. They explain:
“…Instead of creaDng a locked off network inside one parDcular site, chi.mp creates an open and interoperable network between sites. We use open standards and protocols such as OpenID, Oauth, AZribute Exchange and Atom so that anyone from any service that embraces the same standards of freedom and openness can connect with you.”
So what?
The new push for social services is openness: revolDng against the “walled garden” of services like Facebook and making data available via open standards
Belief: le|ng “a thousand flowers bloom” will lead to amazing new social social soVware
#6: Acxiom A few years ago, PBS’s “Frontline” aired “The Persuaders”, a fascinaDng
documentary about adverDsing. One segment focuses on the Acxiom CorporaDon’s data‐gathering efforts.
“If you're a company, a bank, a retailer, what you would do is say you want leV‐handed people of a certain ethnic group, and they're going to be able to do a list for you. You can get markeDng lists of Hispanics who make between $20,000 and $40,000 who are U.S. ciDzens. You can get markeDng lists of people who suffer from inconDnence and have bought those kinds of products in the pharmacy. You can get all sorts of things that can be very narrow.”
The reporter, media expert Douglas Rushkoff, confesses: “what Acxiom is promising is nothing less than the soluDon to cluZer: Send us ads only for products we really want, and anDcipate just when we will want them.”
So what?
Consumer data is incredibly valuable…and marketers love it
#7: The “Greek life” e‐mail hoax Date: 08/29/08 21:10 To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff & All
Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <[email protected]> From: Chancellor Richard Herman <[email protected]> Subject: Regarding Greek life on campus
Dear Students,
...It has been my concern over the years, that the Greek culture of alcoholism and lack of respect for the community degrades campus life... I hope that you will consider wisely.
GDI Chancellor Richard Herman
#7: The “Greek life” e‐mail hoax Prompted a statement from Public Affairs:
From: Robin Kaler <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 10:00 PM Subject: MASSMAIL ‐ email hoax To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff & All Undergrad Students & All
Grad Students <[email protected]>
Dear members of the campus community:
You may have received an email Dtled: Regarding Greek life on campus. This message was a hoax and was NOT sent by Chancellor Richard Herman and was NOT authorized by the campus administraDon.
Robin Kaler Associate Chancellor for Public Affairs
#7: The “Greek life” e‐mail hoax
The forgery was convincing: even tech‐savvy people believed the hoax – and doubted the official response
#7: The “Greek life” e‐mail hoax
And it wasn’t hard to do, either:
DI: “Mass e‐mail confirmed as hoax” (Sep 2)
“It's very easy for someone to send an e‐mail and make it look like it came from someone else,” Corn [the director of security and privacy for CITES] said.
So what?
E‐mail spoofing is easy – and incredibly effecDve
#8: Friend of a Friend
“What is FOAF? The basic idea behind FOAF is simple: the Web is all about
making connecDons between things. FOAF provides some basic machinery to help us tell the Web about the connecDons between the things that maZer to us.
Thousands of people already do this on the Web by describing themselves and their lives on their home page. Using FOAF, you can help machines understand your home page, and through doing so, learn about the relaDonships that connect people, places and things described on the Web. FOAF…integrates informaDon from your home page with that of your friends, and the friends of your friends, and their friends…”
#8: Friend of a Friend
LiveJournal now publishes FOAF for all of its 16 million users.
Let’s look at Brad Fitzpatrick’s FOAF data:
hZp://brad.livejournal.com/data/foaf
#8: Friend of a Friend <foaf:Person>
<foaf:nick>brad</foaf:nick> <foaf:name>Brad Fitzpatrick</foaf:name> <ya:country dc:Dtle="US” … /> <ya:city dc:Dtle="San+Francisco" … /> <foaf:dateOfBirth>1980‐02‐05</foaf:dateOfBirth> <ya:school ya:dateStart="1994” ya:dateFinish="1998” dc:Dtle="Aloha High School"/> <foaf:interest dc:Dtle="camping" … /> <foaf:interest dc:Dtle=”cannon beach" … /> <foaf:interest dc:Dtle=”coffee" … /> <foaf:interest dc:Dtle=”computer science" … /> <foaf:knows> <foaf:Person> <foaf:nick>holyloki</foaf:nick> <foaf:member_name>Ryan Dunn</foaf:member_name> <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="hZp://holyloki.livejournal.com/data/foaf" /> <foaf:weblog rdf:resource="hZp://holyloki.livejournal.com/"/> </foaf:Person> </foaf:knows> …
So what?
We now have a machine‐readable format for expressing data like our name, interests, locaDon, age, school history…
…and links to our friends…
(It was possible to scrape LiveJournal and other sites before, but building the parser was a bit more expensive. Remember, if we make something cheaper…)
#9: Public‐key infrastructure
If we had a reliable public‐key infrastructure, we could do strong authenDcaDon, secure e‐mail…
Why don’t we have a PKI? Peter Gutmann calls out some “grand challenges” The first one? Key lookup
If you want to talk securely to someone, you need their public key. Diffie and Hellman propose pu|ng it in the phone book. Ronald Rivest et al admit this has problems and is unlikely to happen.
So what?
Secure e‐mail (etc.) hampered by lack of a good key distribuDon system…
A predicDon Steve’s a good friend. I trust his opinions. We’re friends on a social‐
networking site, and it’s not hard to find our e‐mails, interests, and physical addresses.
I expect to see e‐mail like this in the next few years:
From: Steve Bezek <[email protected]> To: Alex Lambert Subject: food
Hey, I saw your status earlier, and it said you were hungry. Grizzlebee’s is just a few blocks from your apartment, and their quesadillas are awesome. You should go there tonight. ‐‐ Steve
Except Steve never sent this e‐mail. Spammers will harvest my social networking data for targeDng. They’ll send it from Steve’s address, because they know I’m friends with him and will trust him. This is scary.
A predicDon
Remember: “We created an e‐mail system that provided incredible incenDves for abuse…the system provided aZracDve opportuniDes, and we shouldn’t be surprised that spammers took advantage of those opportuniDes.”
We have an opportunity to solve this problem NOW – and we have to do it now, before the social spam floodgates open.
A proposal
If Steve had digitally signed his messages with his public key, I’d know this message was bogus.
(In a few years: “If I’m ge|ng a message from a friend, and it’s signed with their public key, don’t mark it as spam. Otherwise, assume it’s spam.”)
So how can I get Steve’s public key? Answer: Through Facebook. Use social networking websites to bootstrap a public‐key infrastructure. (And make signing messages so easy that your mom could do it…crypto has huge usability problems right now.)
Summary
• Public keys are published to social networking sites
• Outgoing messages are (easily) signed
• Incoming messages are (easily) verified
• Finally, we get secure e‐mail (and this paves the way for other secure services)
Toward a user interface
• Users have figured out how to use their e‐mail client • Goal is not to revoluDonize the e‐mail UI: instead, add usable security too it
• ParDcularly challenging: preserve exisDng workflows but add security in a way that “makes sense”
• …and makes security aZracDve – Need to dangle a carrot to convince users who don’t directly care about security…
– …because their (understandable and reasonable!) a|tude endangers others’ security
The carrot: a richer address book • Facebook friends/etc are automaDcally added to address book
– …and so are their public keys (but the user doesn’t care) – This is cool! Look at all the Facebook groups/events for “hey, I lost my
phone” • Address book details are enhanced by social networking data
– Picture of the user – IM/phone
• Technically, all of this is orthogonal to the PKI side – A more holisDc, user‐centered design perspecDve cauDons: if it’s not
adopted, it might as well not exist – Needs to provide immediate, tangible, compelling benefit, or users
won’t bother
Simple changes
• Add assurance mechanisms to exisDng client – Don’t disturb the underlying metaphor
– In fact, use exisDng (mis)concepDon that e‐mail is secure for our benefit
• Simple, understandable: – Avoid technical terms like “signed”, “encrypted” – Avoid silly opDons like encrypDon without authenDcaDon
