Wi-Fi location affects online privacy behavior about:reader?url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/19051...

sciencedaily.com

Wi-Fi location affects online privacy

behavior
Mark S. Gold, MD,
4-5 minutos

Does sitting in a coffee shop versus at home influence a

person's willingness to disclose private information online?
Does the on-screen appearance of a public location's online
"terms and conditions" have an effect? According to
researchers at Penn State, the answer to both questions is
"yes," especially if the user has a tendency to instinctively
distrust public wireless networks.

"In our study, we asked if location -- where a person is

physically located offline -- makes a difference to how that
person conducts himself or herself online," said S. Shyam
Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects. "We
also wanted to see if other things that are privacy-related, like
the provision of terms and conditions by the wireless provider
and the presence of a VPN [the virtual private network] logo,
make a difference in how people navigate their privacy
online."

According to Sundar, co-director of the Media Effects

Research Laboratory at the Donald P. Bellisario College of
Communications, some people maintain a mental shortcut,
called "publicness heuristic," which is a mindset that inhibits a
person from revealing private things in public.

"We wanted to know if people who hold onto that publicness

heuristic more strongly are less likely to disclose personal
information via public Wi-Fi," said Sundar, who worked with
Maria Molina and Andrew Gambino, both doctoral candidates

1 de 3 11/05/2019 11:25
Wi-Fi location affects online privacy behavior about:reader?url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/19051...

in mass communication.

The researchers recruited participants from Amazon

Mechanical Turk, a globally distributed online workforce, to
test online behaviors under various privacy-related scenarios.
Specifically, they examined participant online behavior in four
types of physical location -- a coffee shop, a university, an
Airbnb and home. They also compared online behavior
through a simulation comparing participants who connected
to Wi-Fi through a VPN -- indicated by the presence of a VPN
icon in their connection window -- and those who did not
receive such a cue, as well as between participants whose
connection window included a "terms and conditions" cue and
those who did not receive such a cue. The results will be
presented today (May 8) at the ACM Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems in Glasgow, Scotland.

The team examined four types of online behavior -- unethical

behavior, ethical behavior, disclosure of financial information
and disclosure of personal information -- among participants.
They did this by asking the participants questions such as,
"Have you ever looked at pornographic material?" and asking
them to rate, for example, their level of comfort in sharing
their debt-to-loan ratio or their income.

The researchers assessed the participants' publicness

heuristic levels by asking questions about the extent to which
they generally feel it is safe to manage personal business in
public.

The team found that participants who had a higher publicness

heuristic perceived a public network -- the coffee shop -- as
less secure than their home or a university network, and as a
result, disclosed less information and said they participated in
fewer unethical behaviors. Participants rated the Airbnb
network as being more secure than a coffee shop network
and were willing to disclose information when the terms and
conditions cue was present, even without a

2 de 3 11/05/2019 11:25
Wi-Fi location affects online privacy behavior about:reader?url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/19051...

secure VPN connection. Participants were least likely in most

settings to disclose information or behave unethically when
no VPN logo and no terms and conditions were presented.

The authors conclude their paper with a few

recommendations for designers to increase users' awareness
of the security of their network connection in different
locations.

"For example, we suggested that designers could incorporate

cues such as, 'Warning: this is a public network,' or 'VPN:
anonymous browsing,'" said Molina.

According to Sundar, it is important for designers to make

people aware that they are in a public space, so they can
make good decisions about their online behavior.

"These results indicate a need to leverage the positive

heuristics triggered by location, VPN logo and a terms and
conditions statement for ethical design practices," he said.

The National Science Foundation supported this research.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Penn State. Note: Content may be

edited for style and length.

3 de 3 11/05/2019 11:25