Research Spotlight: Adam Lee, Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor Adam Lee receives an NSF Award in the Trustworthy Computing Program. Towards a Dynamic and Composable Model of Trust is a three year project and a joint effort with Dr. Ting Yu from North Carolina State University.
The Trustworthy Computing Program supports research and education activities that explore novel frameworks, theories, and approaches towards secure and privacy-preserving systems, recognizing that a number of intertwined scientific, technological, economic and sociological challenges must be overcome, if we are to realize a trustworthy computing future.
Towards a Dynamic and Composable Model of Trust
People rely on two types of trust when making everyday decisions: vertical and horizontal trust. Vertical trust captures trust relationships between individuals and institutions, while horizontal trust represents the trust inferred from the observations and opinions of other peers. Although significant benefit could be realized by combining horizontal and vertical trust mechanisms, they have evolved independently in computing systems.
Dr. Lee's project on Towards a Dynamic and Composable Model of Trust focuses on developing a composable trust model capable of tightly coupling vertical and horizontal trust in a manner that is both amenable to formal analysis and efficiently deployable. This research advances the state of the art in trust management through a series of innovative results, including the design of a unified framework for specifying composite trust policies and the design and analysis of efficient algorithms for policy evaluation. The composite trust management approach championed by this project also enables policy authors to move beyond simple proof of compliance to identify the "top-k" preferred users satisfying security policies including subjective assessments.
The beneficiaries of this research range from administrators of traditional computing systems who can better incorporate previous history into their decision-making processes, to users in social networks who can more carefully manage the exposure of their personal data.
Additional information about Dr. Lee's award can be found on the NSF Division of Computer and Communication Foundations website.
Read the University Times about this award, October 15, 2009.
You can find more information about Dr. Lee's research projects from his personal web page.