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International Symposium on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium

PETS 2014: Privacy Enhancing Technologies pp 244–262Cite as

Why Doesn’t Jane Protect Her Privacy?

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNSC,volume 8555)

Abstract

End-to-end encryption has been heralded by privacy and security researchers as an effective defence against dragnet surveillance, but there is no evidence of widespread end-user uptake. We argue that the non-adoption of end-to-end encryption might not be entirely due to usability issues identified by Whitten and Tygar in their seminal paper “Why Johnny Can’t Encrypt”. Our investigation revealed a number of fundamental issues such as incomplete threat models, misaligned incentives, and a general absence of understanding of the email architecture. From our data and related research literature we found evidence of a number of potential explanations for the low uptake of end-to-end encryption. This suggests that merely increasing the availability and usability of encryption functionality in email clients will not automatically encourage increased deployment by email users. We shall have to focus, first, on building comprehensive end-user mental models related to email, and email security. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research.

Keywords

  • email
  • end-to-end encryption
  • privacy
  • security
  • mental model

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Karen Renaud

  2. CASED / TU Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 10, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany

    Melanie Volkamer & Arne Renkema-Padmos

Authors
  1. Karen Renaud
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  2. Melanie Volkamer
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  3. Arne Renkema-Padmos
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK

    Emiliano De Cristofaro

  2. Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0FD, Cambridge, UK

    Steven J. Murdoch

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Renaud, K., Volkamer, M., Renkema-Padmos, A. (2014). Why Doesn’t Jane Protect Her Privacy?. In: De Cristofaro, E., Murdoch, S.J. (eds) Privacy Enhancing Technologies. PETS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8555. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08506-7_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08506-7_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08505-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08506-7

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