<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
</head>
<body>
<div class="" style="word-wrap:break-word">This is an announcement of Weijia He's Candidacy Exam.<br class="">
===============================================<br class="">
Candidate: Weijia He<br class="">
<br class="">
Date: Thursday, May 12, 2022<br class="">
<br class="">
Time: 9 am CST<br class="">
<br class="">
Location: <b class="">Exam will now be held fully remote, please see zoom link below</b>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Zoom Link: <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/91976514990?pwd=UWlLK0w5YU0xMUxFeHJqZkRDblYrZz09__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!9PHrjwIQwqDWjU_zYVS29fUJ5Lm-tz8QlXDzEW05GPjidM4XpeAUUOiZ_JxWyLpbitUwuwNLNH_W0AWfWpguYfqj$" class="">https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/91976514990?pwd=UWlLK0w5YU0xMUxFeHJqZkRDblYrZz09</a></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
Title: Making Interactions With Home IoT Devices More Secure, Private, and Usable<br class="">
<br class="">
Abstract: The internet of things for homes (home IoT) brings unique challenges to security. These home IoT devices often interact with multiple people under the same roof and are equipped with various modalities. They don't only react to commands from the user
but also from the environment, which increases the attacking surface and changes the threat model. Home IoT devices' highly fragmented ecosystem only makes things worse, making it harder to find a solution that fits all. Traditional security measurements fail
in these challenges because they are designed for conventional computing devices like computers or smartphones, which are mostly used by one user with proper screens and keyboards. These premises make mechanisms like access control and authentication much
more manageable. On the other hand, traditional computing devices are all general-purposed, making enforcing allowlists impossible. This is no longer the case for home IoT devices, and new strategies must be taken. Responding to these emerging challenges in
home IoT, we create a road map about how to make a home IoT system secure and usable on different levels. We are mainly interested in the device's interactions with the external world, such as users, environments, and remote servers. With such emphasis, we
divide a home IoT system into three parts: user & software, environment & hardware, and network. For the user & software part, we survey what an access control system needs for complicatedly associated users and constantly changing contexts. For environments
& hardware, we create a framework for context sensing, systematizing contexts and their required sensors, along with the security, privacy, and usability promises they hold. In the network part, we explore the design space of creating an allowlist that can
work for various devices of one kind. <br class="">
<br class="">
Advisors: Blase Ur<br class="">
<br class="">
Committee Members: Blase Ur, Nick Feamster, and Heather Zheng</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""></div>
</div>
<div class="" style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div class=""></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>