| Privacy, Security and Trust within the Context of Pervasive Computing is an edited volume based on a post workshop at the second international conference on Pervasive Computing. The workshop was held April18-23, 2004, in Vienna, Austria. The goal of the workshop was not to focus on specific, even novel mechanisms, but rather on the interfaces between mechanisms in different technical and social problem spaces. An investigation of the interfaces between the notions of context, privacy, security, and trust will result in a deeper understanding of the "atomic" problems, leading to a more complete understanding of the social and technical issues in pervasive computing.
Pervasive Computing is sometimes labeled as another passing “technology hype”, while some people in society admit fear of the possibilities when computers are integrated into our everyday lives. Researchers are busily investigating solutions to the security requirements identified by businesses and consumers, with respect to confidentiality, privacy, digital rights maintenance and reliability of information systems.
The question of trustworthiness of spontaneously invoked interactions between devices as well as of exchanges with previously unknown human principals and with entities from unknown organizations or domains has also been raised. Furthermore, sensor networks and powerful embedded computers facilitate the computation of people’s location, activities, conditions and other properties that would not have been immediately available to information systems in the past. While these seem like relatively disparate problems, in reality we form notional mappings between these problems and hence solutions. For example, some authors refer to trusting the context as opposed to trusting a person or thing. The assurance of security within a context has then been identified as a property in the function of trusting the context. Furthermore, people tend to exchange private information with those they trust, and within an environment where trust is somehow provable. What we believe is that an investigation of the interfaces between the notions of context, privacy, security and trust may result in deeper understanding of the “atomic” problems, but also lead to more complete understanding of the social and technical issues in pervasive computing.
The goal of the workshop was not to focus on specific, even novel mechanisms, rather on the interfaces between mechanisms in different technical and social problem spaces. 21 people from different parts of the world took part in the one-day discussion, including PhD students, seasoned and junior researchers. |
