Prashanth Tirupachur Vasanthakrishnan Northwestern University researchers have found they can influence smartphone users’ movements by creating mobile games that have incentives designed to steer people toward specific locations. “We can rely on good luck to get the data that we need, or we can ‘soft control’ users with gaming or social network incentives to drive them where we want them,” says Northwestern professor Fabian Bustamante.
Read more on ACM Communications…
Who’s paying for peer-to-peer traffic across the internet? It’s not the largest ISPs, which can actually profit from such traffic, but smaller regional internet providers and those who operate campus or corporate networks, according to a new paper out that studies how P2P applications affect ISPs. The paper claims to look at the whole ecosystem, across network boundaries and geographical borders to detail the effect of the entire system of files.
Read more on Gigaom…
The CTA bus tracker will let you know how much longer you have to wait in the rain. The train tracker will tell you how fast you need to run to the station. Imagine an application that can tell you which stations have coffee shops nearby, or where this weekend’s block party is, or where your towed car ended up.
Read more on Wbez…
Not even the worst earthquake in its recorded history can keep Japan’s file-swapping community down. Last month, a team at Northwestern University near Chicago used its own BitTorrent monitoring tools to watch the number of BitTorrent peers exchanging data during the week before the earthquake and the week of the earthquake. They were largely identical, with one exception.
Read more on Ars Technica…
“Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University have identified a new ‘guilt-by-association’ threat to privacy in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that would enable an eavesdropper to accurately classify groups of users with similar download behavior.
Read more on Slash Dot…
US engineering researchers say they have identified a new privacy threat to users of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as BitTorrent and (perhaps) Skype. Obligingly, however, they have freely released a protective plugin designed to work with a popular torrent client.
Read more on The Register…
Sure, you probably slather on the sunscreen when you go to the beach, but what does the discerning BitTorrenter use to protect file transfers from the harsh light of day? Northwestern University researchers suggest “SwarmScreen,” their new torrenting obfuscation tool. It’s not encryption—and that’s the point.
Read more on Ars Technica…
Roma – Suscita notevole curiosità uno studio effettuato da alcuni ricercatori statunitensi che ha rivelato una potenziale minaccia per la privacy degli utenti nascosta nel cuore delle reti P2P . Secondo lo studio, tracciando le attività del filesharing sarebbe possibile arrivare a sgominare più utenti con uno sforzo pressoché nullo. Lungi dal creare isterie collettive, i ricercatori hanno già fornito una soluzione: un tool di mimetizzazione che si interfaccia con i maggiori client del circuito torrent, ma che necessita di qualche piccolo sacrificio in termini di banda.
Read more on Punto Informatico…
“Northwestern University researchers have developed a system that gives a heads up about traffic problems on the Internet, where there is no central management system.
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Internet network performance issues are not only bothersome to users, but they are also pricey to businesses and network operators. Nevertheless, because the Internet has no built-in monitoring method, numerous network troubles often fly under the radar.
Read more on Red Orbit…