Using the Internet inherently entails privacy risks. Each packet, potentially carrying information that users would rather keep private, is exposed to a network infrastructure operated by a number of third parties the user may not trust and likely cannot even identify. In some cases, the user may not even trust the recipient.

Techniques exist to protect user privacy, but they do so at the expense of other desirable properties. For example, anonymity services like to hide a packet's true sender but weaken accountability by making it difficult for network administrators or law enforcement to track down malicious senders.

Similarly, encryption hides application data from third parties, but prevents the use of middleboxes – devices that process packets in the network to improve performance (like caches) or security (like intrusion detection systems).

In this talk, Naylor presents techniques for managing these "Privacy vs. X” conflicts, including a new network architecture that re-thinks basic networking building blocks, like packet source addresses and new secure communication protocols that explicitly balance data privacy with the benefits of middleboxes.

Bio:

David Naylor is a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University. His primary research interests are computer networking, security, and privacy. Also, he is interested in Web measurement and performance.

David received his B.S. from the University of Iowa in 2011, where he created the DDR inspired "Scrub Scrub Revolution," a handwashing training game for healthcare professionals. He is an NDSEG fellow and received an ACM SIGCOMM best paper award.