Civic networks of community-based organizations face significant challenges in working together to combat issues facing their community (e.g., gang violence, sex trafficking). In our research, we examined how local organizations tried to build and maintain connectedness over time as a network to fight child sex trafficking. We sought to understand how technology supports the social processes of connectedness in this context. Based on our analysis of the field data from this case study, we identify three categories of activities for building and maintaining connectedness. We also find that while different technologies are suited towards supporting different aspects of connectedness, there may be gaps in how adequately social media tools support connectedness in civic networks.

Nonprofit organizations often need to excel in coordinating with other organizations and must do so in a variety of contexts and levels from the informal to the formal. Their ability to accomplish their mission can critically depend on their efficacy in managing dependencies on others for tasks, accessing needed resources, raising their profile in the community, and achieving their goals. Although much research has been done to understand systems for supporting formal coordination between organizations, there is a gap in understanding how informal coordination can be supported by systems. As a first step towards addressing this gap, we conducted a field study of a network of nonprofit organizations, focusing specifically on informal interactions among them. Based on this study, we characterize informal coordination between organizations and the context for such interactions. Our findings point to a need to further explore a class of interorganizational interactions that may not be adequately explored or understood by our research community.

Nonprofit organizations working with high-risk vulnerable populations such as human trafficking victims often need to engage in a significant level of interorganizational collaboration. Given the importance for nonprofits to be able to work with many different organizations, and given the importance of awareness in initiating and facilitating such collaborations, we conducted a field study to explore existing practices around coordination and awareness across a specific ecosystem of nonprofit organizations. In this paper, we provide an in-depth reflection on interorganizational issues among a cross-section of nonprofits. We identify four aspects of the interorganizational context in which these nonprofits must operate, as well as challenges they may encounter. Our goal is to illuminate first steps towards finding appropriate technological solutions for supporting coordination and awareness between these organizations so they can be more effective in accomplishing their mission.

We consider the problem of identifying obscure chat-like botnet command and control (C & C) communications, which are indistinguishable from human-human communication using traditional signature-based techniques. Existing passive-behavior-based anomaly detection techniques are limited because they either require monitoring multiple bot-infected machines that belong to the same botnet or require extended monitoring times. In this paper, we explore the potential use of active botnet probing techniques in a network middle-box as a means to augment and complement existing passive botnet C & C detection strategies, especially for small botnets with obfuscated C & C content and infrequent C & C interactions. We present an algorithmic framework that uses hypothesis testing to separate botnet C & C dialogs from human-human conversations with desired accuracy and implement a prototype system called BotProbe. Experimental results on multiple real-world IRC bots demonstrate that our proposed active methods can successfully identify obscure and obfuscated botnet communications. A real-world user study on about one hundred participants also shows that the technique has a low false positive rate on human-human conversations. We discuss the limitations of BotProbe and hope this preliminary feasibility study on the use of active techniques in botnet research can inspire new thoughts and directions within the malware research community.

Non-expert users face a dilemma when making security decisions. Their security often cannot be fully automated for them, yet they generally lack both the motivation and technical knowledge to make informed security decisions on their own. To help users with this dilemma, we present a novel security user interface called Sesame. Sesame uses a concrete, spatial extension of the desktop metaphor to provide users with the security-related, visualized system-level information they need to make more informed decisions. It also provides users with actionable controls to affect a system's security state. Sesame graphically facilitates users' comprehension in making these decisions, and in doing so helps to lower the bar for motivating them to participate in the security of their system. In a controlled study, users with Sesame were found to make fewer errors than a control group which suggests that our novel security interface is a viable alternative approach to helping users with their dilemma.

The creativity and innovation found in knowledge work such as public policy is often hidden. This "hidden-ness" is likely due to the predominantly textual representation of the work done in this domain. Unlike other areas that are more design-oriented, public policy knowledge work generally does not rely on, or produce, graphical artifacts which can showcase the innovation. In contrast, for domains such as engineering-design or the fine arts, the generation of such artifacts is inherently a part of the work itself. IdeaMurals attempts to explore how creativity and innovation can be supported for a domain that is largely ignored. It also seeks to explore how visual elements can be leveraged to support the ideating process of policy work. The organizing principle of IdeaMurals is to support ideation based on how ideas are constructed; and the construction of these ideas is framed as being analogous to the construction of art compositions.

End-users are often perceived as the weakest link in information security. Because of this perception, a growing body of research and commercial activity is focused on automated approaches to security. With these approaches, security decisions are removed from the hands of the users, and are placed instead in systems themselves, or in remote services or organizations that establish policies that are automatically enforced. We contend that although security automation is potentially beneficial in theory, in practice it is not a panacea for end-user information security. A number of technical and social factors mitigate against the acceptance and efficacy of automated end-user security solutions in many cases. In this paper, we present a discussion of the inherent limitations of automating security for end-users. We then discuss a set of design guidelines for choosing whether to automate end-user security systems. We conclude with a set of research directions focused on increasing the acceptance and efficacy of security solutions for end-users.