14th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services

Research Article

Privacy-preserving Comparison of Cloud Exposure Induced by Mobile Apps

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.7-11-2017.2273531,
        author={Martin Henze and Ritsuma Inaba and Ina Berenice Fink and Jan Henrik Ziegeldorf},
        title={Privacy-preserving Comparison of Cloud Exposure Induced by Mobile Apps},
        proceedings={14th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS},
        year={2018},
        month={4},
        keywords={privacy smartphones cloud computing security anonymity},
        doi={10.4108/eai.7-11-2017.2273531}
    }
    
  • Martin Henze
    Ritsuma Inaba
    Ina Berenice Fink
    Jan Henrik Ziegeldorf
    Year: 2018
    Privacy-preserving Comparison of Cloud Exposure Induced by Mobile Apps
    MOBIQUITOUS
    ACM
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.7-11-2017.2273531
Martin Henze1,*, Ritsuma Inaba2, Ina Berenice Fink1, Jan Henrik Ziegeldorf1
  • 1: RWTH Aachen University
  • 2: University of Michigan
*Contact email: henze@comsys.rwth-aachen.de

Abstract

The increasing utilization of cloud services by mobile apps on smartphones leads to serious privacy concerns. While users can quantify the cloud usage of their apps, they often cannot relate to involved privacy risks. In this paper, we apply comparison-based privacy, a behavioral nudge, to the cloud usage of mobile apps. This enables users to compare their personal app-induced cloud exposure to that of their peers to discover potential privacy risks from deviation from normal usage behavior. Since cloud usage statistics are sensitive, we protect them with k-anonymity and differential privacy.