Skip to main content
Log in

Lockbox: mobility, privacy and values in cloud storage

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Ethics and Information Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper examines one particular problem of values in cloud computing: how individuals can take advantage of the cloud to store data without compromising their privacy and autonomy. Through the creation of Lockbox, an encrypted cloud storage application, we explore how designers can use reflection in designing for human values to maintain both privacy and usability in the cloud.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anthes, G. (2010). Security in the cloud. Communications of the ACM, 53(11), 16–18. doi:10.1145/1839676.1839683.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bevan, N. (1995). Usability is Quality of Use. In Presented at the Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (CHI), Yokohama, Japan.

  • Bowers, K. D., Juels, A., & Oprea, A. (2009). HAIL: a high-availability and integrity layer for cloud storage (pp. 187–198). In Presented at the Proceedings of the 16th ACM conference on Computer and communications security, New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1653662.1653686.

  • Boyd, D. (2010). Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity. Austin, TX: SXSW.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyles, J. L., Smith, A., & Madden, M. (2012). Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project (pp. 1–19). Washington, D.C.

  • Brunton, F., & Nissenbaum, H. (2011). Vernacular resistance to data collection and analysis: A political theory of obfuscation. First Monday, 16(5), 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burkert, H. (1997). Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Typology, critique, vision. In P. E. Agre & M. Rotenberg (Eds.), Technology and privacy: The new landscape (pp. 125–142). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, J., Wu, X., Zhang, S., Zhang, W., & Niu, Y. (2012). A Decentralized Approach for Implementing Identity Management in Cloud Computing (pp. 770–776). In Presented at the International Conference on Cloud and Green Computing (CGC), IEEE. doi:10.1109/CGC.2012.118.

  • Clark, D. D., Wroclawski, J., Sollins, K. R., & Braden, R. (2005). Tussle in cyberspace: Defining tomorrow’s internet. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 13(3), 462–475. doi:10.1109/TNET.2005.850224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. E. (2000). Examined lives: Informational privacy and the subject as object. Stanford Law Review, 52(5), 1373–1438.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. E. (2012). Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Constantine, D. (2012). Cloud computing: The next great technological innovation, the death of online privacy, or both. Georgia State University Law Review, 28(2), 499–528.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duffany, J. L. (2012). Cloud Computing Security and Privacy. In Presented at the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology (pp. 1–9) Panama City, Panama.

  • Fischer, P. E. (2012). Global standards: Recent developments between the poles of privacy and cloud computing. JIPITEC, 1(3), 33–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flanagan, M., Howe, D. C., & Nissenbaum, H. (2008). Embodying Values in Technology: Theory and Practice. In J. van den Hoeven & J. Weckert (Eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy (pp. 322–353). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, B., & Nissenbaum, H. (1996). Bias in Computer Systems. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 14(3), 330–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, B., & Nissenbaum, H. (1997). Software Agents and User Autonomy. In Presented at the AGENTS ‘97: Proceedings of the first international conference on Autonomous agents (pp. 466–469) New York.

  • Friedman, B., Kahn, P. H., & Borning, A. (2006). Value sensitive design and information systems. In B. Schneiderman, P. Zhang, & D. Galletta (Eds.), Human-Computer Interaction in Management Information Systems: Foundations (pp. 348–372). New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gain, B. (2011, April 23). Why Dropbox’s Privacy Policy Is OK (Just Proceed Carefully). pcworld.com. Retrieved April 30, 2011, from.

  • Garon, J. M. (2011). Navigating through the CloudLegal and Regulatory Management for Software as a Service. NKU Chase Law & Informatics Institute.

  • Geambasu, R., John, J. P., Gribble, S. D., Kohno, T., & Levy, H. M. (2011). Keypad: An Auditing File System for Theft-Prone Devices. In Presented at the EuroSys’11 (pp. 1–15) Salzburg, Austria.

  • Gellman, R. (2009). Privacy in the Clouds: Risks to Privacy and Confidentiality from Cloud Computing (pp. 1–26). World Privacy Forum.

  • Governor, J. (2011, April 20). My thoughts on Dropbox, corporate and personal privacy and ToS changes. James Governor’s Monkchips. Retrieved May 6 2013, from http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2011/04/20/my-thoughts-on-dropbox-corporate-and-person.

  • Hon, W. K., Millard, C., & Walden, I. (2011). The problem of “personal data” in cloud computing: What information is regulated?—the cloud of unknowing. International Data Privacy Law, 1(4), 211–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Itani, W., Kayssi, A., & Chehab, A. (2009). Privacy as a Service: Privacy-Aware Data Storage and Processing in Cloud Computing Architectures. In Presented at the International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing (DASC), IEEE. (pp. 711–716) doi:10.1109/DASC.2009.139.

  • Jansen, W., & Grance, T. (2011) Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing (pp. 1–80). Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce.

  • Johnson, D. G. (2006). Computer systems: Moral entities but not moral agents. Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 195–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kerr, I. (2010). Digital locks and the automation of virtue. “Radical extremism” to “Balanced Copyright”: Canadian Copyright and the digital agenda (pp. 247–303). Toronto: Irwin Law.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerr, I., & McGill, J. (2007). Emanations, Snoop Dogs and Reasonable Expectations of Privacy. Criminal Law Quarterly, 52(3), 392–431.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, B. H., Huang, W., & Lie, D. (2012). Unity: secure and durable personal cloud storage. In Presented at the Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Workshop on Cloud computing security workshop (pp. 31–36) New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2381913.2381920.

  • Kittler, F. A. (1999). Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. (G. Winthrop-Young, Trans.). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

  • Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W. E. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 225–258). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, S. (1996). Crypto Rebels. In P. Ludlow (Ed.), High noon on the electronic frontier (pp. 185–205). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lodhi, A. (2010). Usability Heuristics as an Assessment Parameter: for performing Usability Testing.In Presented at the 2nd International Conference on Software Technology and Engineering(ICSTE) (pp. 256–259) San Juan, Puerto Rico.

  • Lopez-Alt, A., Tromer, E., & Vaikuntanathan, V. (2012). On-the-fly multiparty computation on the cloud via multikey fully homomorphic encryption. In Presented at the Proceedings of the 44th symposium on Theory of Computing (pp. 1219–1234) New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/2213977.2214086.

  • Lyon, D. (2007). Data, Discrimination, Dignity. In Surveillance Studies: An Overview (pp. 179–197). Malden, MA: Polity.

  • Manders-Huits, N., & Zimmer, M. (2009). Values and pragmatic action: The Challenges of Introducing Ethical Intelligence in Technical Design Communities. International Review of Information Ethics, 1–8.

  • Matthews, L. (2011, April 21). Dropbox responds to privacy outrage. Geek.com. Retrieved May 6 2013, from http://www.geek.com/news/dropbox-responds-to-privacy-outrage-1345235/.

  • Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011) The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing (Draft) (pp. 1–7). National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce.

  • Nielsen, J. (1993). What is usability. Usability engineering (pp. 23–49). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Nissenbaum, H. (2010). Privacy in context: Technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Law Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nissenbaum, H. (2011a). From Preemption to Circumvention. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 26(3), 1367–1386.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nissenbaum, H. (2011b). A Contextual Approach to Privacy Online. Daedalus, 140(4), 32–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ohm, P. (2005). The Fourth Amendment Right to Delete. Harvard Law Review, 119, 10–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, S. (2009). Taking Account of Privacy When Designing Cloud Computing Services. In Presented at the ICSE’09 Workshop (pp. 44–52).

  • Pearson, S., Shen, Y., & Mowbray, M. (2009). A privacy manager for cloud computing. Cloud Computing (pp. 90–106). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pfaffenberger, B. (1992). Technological Dramas. Science, Technology and Human Values, 17(3), 282–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plato, & Hamilton, E. (1961). Phaedrus. In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.), The collected dialogues of Plato (pp. 475–525). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, M. D. (2011). Cloud computing privacy concerns on our doorstep. Communications of the ACM, 54(1), 36–38. doi:10.1145/1866739.1866751.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sengers, P., Boehner, K., David, S., & Kaye, J. “. (2005). Reflective Design. In Presented at the Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on Critical computing: between sense and sensibility (pp. 49–58) New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1094562.1094569.

  • Soghoian, C. (2011, April 12). How Dropbox sacrifices user privacy for cost savings. slight paranoia. Retrieved July 10 2013, from http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-user-privacy-for.html.

  • Solove, D. J. (2006). A taxonomy of privacy. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 154(3), 477–564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tor Project: Overview. (n.d.). Tor Project: Overview. torproject.org. Retrieved May 6 2013, from https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en.

  • Tridgell, A., & Mackerras, P. (1996). The rsync algorithm (No. TR-CS-96-05) (pp. 1–8). The Australian National University.

  • Wang, C., Wang, Q., & Ren, K. (2011). Towards Secure and Effective Utilization over Encrypted Cloud Data. In Presented at the 31st International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops (ICDCS Workshops) (pp. 282–286) IEEE. doi:10.1109/ICDCSW.2011.16.

  • Whitworth, B., & de Moor, A. (2003). Legitimate by design: Towards trusted socio-technical systems. Behavior and Information Technology, 22(1), 31–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Q., Luo, B., Shi, W., & Almoharib, A. M. (2013). CloudSafe: Storing Your Digital Asset in the Cloud-based Safe.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luke Stark.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stark, L., Tierney, M. Lockbox: mobility, privacy and values in cloud storage. Ethics Inf Technol 16, 1–13 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-013-9328-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-013-9328-z

Keywords

Navigation