I’ll be speaking at the Information Security Group seminar at Royal Holloway on October 24th. This is especially exciting for me, as I’m getting to present some new research on PGP key servers, while at the same time getting to know new colleagues working on information security in the UK. Here’s the abstract for my talk:
The problem of making computing systems trustworthy is often framed in terms of ensuring that users can trust systems. In contrast, my research illustrates that trustworthy computing intrinsically relies upon social trust in the operation of systems, as much as in the use of systems. Drawing from cases including the Border Gateway Protocol, DNS, and the PGP key server pool, I will show how the trustworthiness of the Internet’s infrastructural technologies relies upon interpersonal and institutional trust within the communities of the Internet’s technical operations personnel. Through these cases, I will demonstrate how a sociotechnical perspective can aid in the analysis and development of trustworthy computing systems by foregrounding operational trust alongside user trust and technological design.