NetSE: Medium: Collaborative Research: Auditing Internet Content for Credibility, Fairness, and Privacy

NetSE：媒介：协作研究：审核互联网内容的可信度、公平性和隐私

• 批准号: 1065456
• 负责人: Charlie Hu
• 金额: $ 27.74万
• 依托单位: Purdue University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2016-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1065456&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NetSE; Medium; Collaborative; Research; Auditing; NetSE; Medium; Collaborative; Research; Auditing

Millions of users are accessing a portion of billions of Web pages and other content on the Internet on a daily basis. While the networking research community and the public in general are well-aware of the net neutrality problem, i.e., how to develop regulatory policies and auditing mechanisms to prevent Internet Service Providers from discriminating against various applications, very little effort is invested in enabling content neutrality. In particular, it is not a secret that almost every browsing click we make is collected by either Web- or ISP-based 'information collectors and aggregators', and that our profiles are used for online advertising. Still, no public auditing mechanisms, capable of detecting and informing end users about such practices, exist in this emerging area. Take search engines as another example. How does one know that information available on these services is not biased (or will become biased in the future) for commercial, political, or any other reason? More generally, no public auditing systems are capable of monitoring the scope and effectiveness of advertising or spam campaigns on the Internet. The PIs argue that all these questions fundamentally affect fairness at all levels, information credibility, and user privacy, all of which have significant relevance for the future development of the Internet and beyond.The PIs will build a set of methodologies and tools unified in a system capable of (i) enabling auditing mechanisms for the Web advertising domain, (ii) monitoring search engines? services and revealing their neutrality, and (iii) independently determining a Web site's popularity and checking for the truthfulness of advertised popularity. Further, the PIs plan to deploy the developed system on the PlanetLab wide area network testbed to perform long term monitoring of content neutrality in the Internet.Broader Impact: By informing the public of how online advertisers and search engines behave, the auditing system will enable fair competition and preclude monopolies, oligopolies, or collusions, eventually helping to improve online information credibility and user privacy. Even if no bias nor privacy-violating practices were to exist in today's Internet (unfortunately, the PI's preliminary results show that this is not the case), the auditing system and methodologies will always be a barrier for anyone who would believe that applying such approaches might be done without public knowledge and repercussions. By exposing biased content behavior, the auditing system will be capable of revealing discriminating acts that can happen for commercial, social, political, religious, or any other reason, ultimately facilitating the development of free and open society. The PIs will design and disseminate easy-to-use browser extensions and plug-ins that will be capable of assisting end users in detecting content neutrality violations. Education is an integral part of this award. The insights and tools derived from this project will be integrated into the current undergraduate and graduate curricula.

每天，数以百万计的用户正在访问Internet上数十亿个网页和其他内容的一部分。尽管网络研究界和公众一般都对网络中立性问题有充分的了解，即如何制定监管政策和审计机制，以防止互联网服务提供商歧视各种应用程序，但很少投入努力来实现内容中立。特别是，我们进行的几乎所有浏览点击都是由网络或基于ISP的“信息收集器和聚合器”收集的，并且我们的个人资料用于在线广告并不是一个秘密。尽管如此，在这个新兴领域中，没有能够检测和告知最终用户有关此类实践的公共审计机制。以搜索引擎为例。如何知道有关这些服务的可用信息不会出于商业，政治或任何其他原因而偏见（或将来会变得有偏见）？更一般而言，没有公共审计系统能够监视互联网上广告或垃圾邮件活动的范围和有效性。 PI认为，所有这些问题从根本上影响了各个层面，信息信誉和用户隐私，所有这些问题与互联网及其他地区的未来开发都有很大的相关性。PIS将在系统中构建一组方法和工具，该系统和工具能够在（i）为Web广告域启用审计机制的系统中，（i）监视搜索引擎吗？服务和揭示其中立性，（iii）独立确定网站的受欢迎程度并检查广告宣传的真实性。此外，PIS计划将开发系统部署在Planetlab广泛的区域网络测试中，以进行互联网中内容中性的长期监控。Broader的影响：通过向公众告知在线广告商和搜索引擎如何行事，审计系统将启用公平竞争，并促进公平竞争，并防止垄断，寡头垄断，寡头垄断或碰撞，以帮助提高在线信息和用户的专利性，以提高在线信息和用户的特定性。即使在当今的互联网中不存在任何偏见和隐私性实践（不幸的是，PI的初步结果表明事实并非如此），审计系统和方法始终将成为任何人都认为在没有公共知识和公共知识的情况下可以采用此类方法的任何人。通过暴露有偏见的内容行为，审计系统将能够揭示可能发生在商业，社会，政治，宗教或任何其他原因的歧视行为，最终促进自由和开放社会的发展。 PI将设计和传播易于使用的浏览器扩展名和插件，这些浏览器将能够协助最终用户检测违规内容中立性。教育是该奖项不可或缺的一部分。从该项目获得的见解和工具将集成到当前的本科和研究生课程中。