Publications
158 results found
Perera C, Wakenshaw SYL, Baarslag T, et al., 2017, Valorising the IoT Databox: creating value for everyone, TRANSACTIONS ON EMERGING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES, Vol: 28, ISSN: 2161-3915
Sajadmanesh S, Jafarzadeh S, Ossia SA, et al., 2017, Kissing Cuisines: Exploring Worldwide Culinary Habits on the Web, WWW'17 COMPANION: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 26TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WIDE WEB, Pages: 1013-1021
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- Citations: 32
Mortier R, Zhao J, Crowcroft J, et al., 2016, Personal data management with the databox: What's inside the box?, Pages: 49-54
We are all increasingly the subjects of data collection and processing systems that use data generated both about and by us to provide and optimise a wide range of services. Means for others to collect and process data that concerns each of us { often referred to possessively as "your data" { are only increasing with the long-heralded advent of the In- ternet of Things just the latest example. As a result, means to enable personal data management is generally recognised as a pressing societal issue. We have previously proposed that one such means might be realised by the Databox, a collection of physical and cloud- hosted software components that provide for an individual data subject to manage, log and audit access to their data by other parties. In this paper we elaborate on this proposal, describing the software architecture we are developing, and the current status of a prototype implementation. We con- clude with a brief discussion of Databox's limitations.
Tyson G, Perta VC, Haddadi H, et al., 2016, A first look at user activity on tinder, Pages: 461-466
Mobile dating apps have become a popular means to meet potential partners. Although several exist, one recent addition stands out amongst all others. Tinder presents its users with pictures of people geographically nearby, whom they can either like or dislike based on first impressions. If two users like each other, they are allowed to initiate a conversation via the chat feature. In this paper we use a set of curated profiles to explore the behaviour of men and women in Tinder. We reveal differences between the way men and women interact with the app, highlighting the strategies employed. Women attain large numbers of matches rapidly, whilst men only slowly accumulate matches. Most notably, our results indicate that a little effort in grooming profiles, especially for male users, goes a long way in attracting attention.
Crabtree A, Lodge T, Colley J, et al., 2016, Enabling the new economic actor: data protection, the digital economy, and the Databox, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol: 20, Pages: 947-957, ISSN: 0949-2054
This paper offers a sociological perspective on data protection regulation and its relevance to design. From this perspective, proposed regulation in Europe and the USA seeks to create a new economic actor—the consumer as personal data trader—through new legal frameworks that shift the locus of agency and control in data processing towards the individual consumer or “data subject”. The sociological perspective on proposed data regulation recognises the reflexive relationship between law and the social order, and the commensurate needs to balance the demand for compliance with the design of computational tools that enable this new economic actor. We present the Databox model as a means of providing data protection and allowing the individual to exploit personal data to become an active player in the emerging data economy.
Nithyanand R, Khattak S, Javed M, et al., 2016, Adblocking and counter-blocking: A slice of the arms race
Adblocking tools like Adblock Plus continue to rise in popularity, potentially threatening the dynamics of advertising revenue streams. In response, a number of publishers have ramped up efforts to develop and deploy mechanisms for detecting and/or counter-blocking adblockers (which we refer to as anti-adblockers), effectively escalating the online advertising arms race. In this paper, we develop a scalable approach for identifying third-party services shared across multiple websites and use it to provide a first characterization of anti-adblocking across the Alexa Top-5K websites. We map websites that perform anti-adblocking as well as the entities that provide anti-adblocking scripts. We study the modus operandi of these scripts and their impact on popular adblockers. We find that at least 6.7% of websites in the Alexa Top-5K use anti-adblocking scripts, acquired from 12 distinct entities – some of which have a direct interest in nourishing the online advertising industry.
Fay D, Haddadi H, Seto MC, et al., 2016, An exploration of fetish social networks and communities, Pages: 195-204, ISSN: 0302-9743
Online Social Networks (OSNs) provide a venue for virtual interactions and relationships between individuals. In some communities, OSNs also facilitate arranging offline meetings and relationships. FetLife, the world’s largest anonymous social network for the BDSM, fetish and kink communities, provides a unique example of an OSN that serves as an interaction space, community organizing tool, and sexual market. In this paper, we present a first look at the characteristics of European members of Fetlife, comprising 504,416 individual nodes with 1,912,196 connections. We looked at user characteristics in terms of gender, sexual orientation, and preferred role. We further examined the homophilic communities and find that women in particular are far more platonically involved on the site than straight males. Our results suggest there are important differences between the FetLife community and conventional OSNs.
Falahrastegar M, Haddadi H, Uhlig S, et al., 2016, Tracking personal identifiers across the web, Pages: 30-41, ISSN: 0302-9743
User tracking has become de facto practice of the Web, however, our understanding of the scale and nature of this practice remains rudimentary. In this paper, we explore the connections amongst all parties of the Web, especially focusing on how trackers share user IDs. Using data collected from both browsing histories of 129 users and active experiments, we identify user-specific IDs that we suspect are used to track users. We find a significant amount of ID-sharing practices across different organisations providing various service categories. Our observations reveal that ID-sharing happens in a large scale regardless of the user profile size and profile condition such as logged-in and logged-out. We unexpectedly observe a higher number of ID-sharing domains when user is logged-out.We believe that our work reveals the huge gap between what is known about user tracking and what is done by this complex and important ecosystem.
Mejova Y, Abbar S, Haddadi H, 2016, Fetishizing food in digital age: #foodporn around theworld, Pages: 250-258
What food is so good as to be considered pornographic? Worldwide, the popular #foodporn hashtag has been used to share appetizing pictures of peoples' favorite culinary experiences. But social scientists ask whether #foodporn promotes an unhealthy relationship with food, as pornography would contribute to an unrealistic view of sexuality (Rousseau 2014). In this study, we examine nearly 10 million Instagram posts by 1.7 million users worldwide. An overwhelming (and uniform across the nations) obsession with chocolate and cake shows the domination of sugary dessert over local cuisines. Yet, we find encouraging traits in the association of emotion and health-related topics with #foodporn, suggesting food can serve as motivation for a healthy lifestyle. Social approval also favors the healthy posts, with users posting with healthy hashtags having an average of 1,000 more followers than those with unhealthy ones. Finally, we perform a demographic analysis which shows nation-wide trends of behavior, such as a strong relationship (r = 0.51) between the GDP per capita and the attention to healthiness of their favorite food. Our results expose a new facet of food "pornography", revealing potential avenues for utilizing this precarious notion for promoting healthy lifestyles.
Hansel K, Alomainy A, Haddadi H, 2016, Large Scale Mood and Stress Self-Assessments on a Smartwatch, ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) / 20th ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 1180-1184
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- Citations: 21
Katevas K, Haddadi H, Tokarchuk L, et al., 2016, Detecting Group Formations using iBeacon Technology, ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) / 20th ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 742-752
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- Citations: 11
Tyson G, Perta VC, Haddadi H, et al., 2016, A First Look at User Activity on Tinder, 8th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Publisher: IEEE, Pages: 461-466
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- Citations: 28
Cunha TO, Weber I, Haddadi H, et al., 2016, The Effect of Social Feedback in a Reddit Weight Loss Community, 6th International Conference on Digital Health (DH), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 99-103
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- Citations: 8
Fard MA, Haddadi H, Targhi AT, 2016, Fruits and Vegetables Calorie Counter Using Convolutional Neural Networks, 6th International Conference on Digital Health (DH), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 121-122
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- Citations: 6
Naderi PT, Malazi HT, Ghassemian M, et al., 2016, Quality of Claim Metrics in Social Sensing Systems: A case study on IranDeal, 6th International Conference on Computer and Knowledge Engineering (ICCKE), Publisher: IEEE, Pages: 129-135
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- Citations: 2
Amar Y, Haddadi H, Mortier R, 2016, Privacy-Aware Infrastructure for Managing Personal Data Personal Data Arbitering within the Databox Framework, ACM Conference on Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 571-572
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- Citations: 6
Rich J, Haddadi H, Hospedales TM, 2016, Towards Bottom-Up Analysis of Social Food, 6th International Conference on Digital Health (DH), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 111-120
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- Citations: 22
Katevas K, Haddadi H, Tokarchuk L, 2016, SensingKit: Evaluating the Sensor Power Consumption in iOS devices, 12th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE), Publisher: IEEE, Pages: 222-225, ISSN: 2469-8792
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- Citations: 17
Wilde N, Haddadi H, Alomainy A, 2015, Future feasibility of using wearable interfaces to provide social support
Social support has a positive inuence on a person's overall wellbeing. The recent creation of mobile and online social networks have changed the methods used to obtain such support. Previous wearable devices have focussed on in-creasing an individuals perceived level of social support by either encouraging new social relationships or strengthen-ing those already existing. With the release of the Apple Watch, wearable interfaces are becoming popular but there is little research into the current attitudes of using these interfaces as a social support medium. In this paper we present the results of our survey to establish the attitudes of current smartwatch owners. Results show owning a smart-watch has no effect on the levels of social support a person feels they have. The most commonly used method of sup-port was through smartphone, which was true for people regardless of whether they own a smartwatch. A large num-ber of smartwatch owners stated using their device was their last preference in seeking emotional (61%) and informational (57%) support from others. Results from the survey indicate that more research is needed to establish exactly what fac-tors make technological devices well suited to accommodate social support and how these can be applied to wearable interfaces in the future.
Hänsel K, Wilde N, Haddadi H, et al., 2015, Challenges with current wearable technology in monitoring health data and providing positive behavioural support
There is a current trend of wearable sensing with regards to health. Wearable sensors and devices allow us to mon-itor various aspects of our lives. Through this monitoring, wearable systems can utilise data to positively inuence an individual's overall health and wellbeing. We envisage a future where technology can effectively help us to become fltter and healthier, but the current state of wearables and future directions are unclear. In this paper, we present an overview of current methods used within wearable applica-tions to monitor and support positive health and wellbeing within an individual. We then highlight issues and chal-lenges outlined by previous studies and describe the future focuses of work.
Chaudhry A, Crowcroft J, Howard H, et al., 2015, Personal data: Thinking inside the box, Pages: 29-32
We are in a 'personal data gold rush' driven by advertising being the primary revenue source for most online companies. These companies accumulate extensive personal data about individuals with minimal concern for us, the subjects of this process. This can cause many harms: privacy infringement, personal and professional embarrassment, restricted access to labour markets, restricted access to best value pricing, and many others. There is a critical need to provide technologies that enable alternative practices, so that individuals can participate in the collection, management and consumption of their personal data. In this paper we discuss the Databox, a personal networked device (and associated services) that collates and mediates access to personal data, allowing us to recover control of our online lives. We hope the Databox is a first step to re-balancing power between us, the data subjects, and the corporations that collect and use our data.
Katevas K, Haddadi H, Tokarchuk L, et al., 2015, Walking in sync: Two is company, three's a crowd, Pages: 25-29
Eventual gait synchronization between two individuals while walking and talking with each other has been shown to be an indicator of agreeableness and companionship. The inferred physical signal from this subconscious phenomenon can potentially be an indicator of cooperation or relation between two individuals. In this paper we investigate this effect, and whether having a third person actively engaging in the same act or conversation can reduce this synchronization level. Using high frequency accelerometer data from a dedicated smartphone app, we perform a number of controlled experiments on a number of individuals in different group configuration. Our results bring an interesting insight: it is the non-verbal social signals such as the gaze, head orienta- tion and gestures that is the key factor in synchronization, not necessarily the number or configuration of the walkers. These early results can lead us on detecting relationships between individuals or detecting the group formation and numbers for crowd-sensing applications when only partial data is available.
Mejova Y, Haddadi H, Noulas A, et al., 2015, #FoodPorn: Obesity patterns in culinary interactions, Pages: 51-58
We present a large-scale analysis of Instagram pictures taken at 164,753 restaurants by millions of users. Motivated by the obesity epidemic in the United States, our aim is three-fold: (i) to assess the relationship between fast food and chain restaurants and obesity, (ii) to better understand people's thoughts on and perceptions of their daily dining experi-ences, and (iii) to reveal the nature of social reinforcement and approval in the context of dietary health on social me-dia. When we correlate the prominence of fast food restau-rants in US counties with obesity, we find the Foursquare data to show a greater correlation at 0.424 than official sur-vey data from the County Health Rankings would show. Our analysis further reveals a relationship between small businesses and local foods with better dietary health, with such restaurants getting more attention in areas of lower obesity. However, even in such areas, social approval favors the unhealthy foods high in sugar, with donut shops produc-ing the most liked photos. Thus, the dietary landscape our study reveals is a complex ecosystem, with fast food playing a role alongside social interactions and personal perceptions, which often may be at odds.
Haddadi H, Perta V, 2015, A Glance through the VPN Looking Glass: IPv6 Leakage and DNS Hijacking in Commercial VPN clients, The 15th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2015), Publisher: De Gruyter, Pages: 77-91, ISSN: 2299-0984
Commercial Virtual Private Network (VPN) services have become a popular and convenient technology for users seeking privacy and anonymity. They have been applied to a wide range of use cases, with commercial providers often making bold claims regarding their ability to fulfil each of these needs, e.g., censorship circumvention, anonymity and protection from monitoring and tracking. However, as of yet, the claims made by these providers have not received a sufficiently detailed scrutiny. This paper thus investigates the claims of privacy and anonymity in commercial VPN services. We analyse 14 of the most popular ones, inspecting their internals and their infrastructures. Despite being a known issue, our experimental study reveals that the majority of VPN services suffer from IPv6 traffic leakage. The work is extended by developing more sophisticated DNS hijacking attacks that allow all traffic to be transparently captured.We conclude discussing a range of best practices and countermeasures that can address these vulnerabilities
Amar Y, Haddadi H, Mortier R, 2015, An Information-Theoretic Approach to Time-Series Data Privacy, Workshop on Privacy by Design in Distributed Systems (P2DS), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY
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- Citations: 1
Mejova Y, Haddadi H, Abbar S, et al., 2015, Dietary Habits of an Expat Nation: Case of Qatar, International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), Publisher: IEEE, Pages: 57-62
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- Citations: 19
Haddadi H, Ofli F, Mejova Y, et al., 2015, 360° Quantified Self, International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), Publisher: IEEE, Pages: 587-592
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- Citations: 12
Silina Y, Haddadi H, 2015, "New Directions in Jewelry": a Close Look at Emerging Trends & Developments in Jewelry-like Wearable Devices, ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) / ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 49-56
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- Citations: 24
Katevas K, Haddadi H, Tokarchuk L, 2014, SensingKit - A Multi-Platform Mobile Sensing Framework for Large-Scale Experiments, 20th ACM Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom), Publisher: ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY, Pages: 375-377
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- Citations: 12
Falahrastegar M, Haddadi H, Uhlig S, et al., 2014, The Rise of Panopticons: Examining Region-Specific Third-Party Web Tracking, 6th International Workshop on Traffic Monitoring and Analysis (TMA), Publisher: SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, Pages: 104-114, ISSN: 0302-9743
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- Citations: 11
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