Research

Research interests

Publications

Vinod Sarjerao Khandkar, Nishanth Ramakrishna Sastry, Ehsan Toreini (2024)Talk : FFT-assisted Secret Generation via Gyroscope Measurements on Smartphones

The disclosure of domestic abuse or help needed is challenging for victims due to factors such as intimidation and fear of being caught. Domestic abuse is especially pernicious as the abuser can be a powerful adversary who may have complete control over all technological means of communication within the premises. We have developed a novel sensor-based method to unobtrusively create a shared secret between the victim and the supportive friend without exchanging data over the network. The generated secret shows entropy similar to some methods used in OpenSSL.

James M. Clarke, Maryam Mehrnezhad, Ehsan Toreini (2024)Invisible, Unreadable, and Inaudible Cookie Notices: An Evaluation of Cookie Notices for Users with Visual Impairments, In: ACM transactions on accessible computing17(1)1pp. 1-39 ACM

This article investigates the accessibility of cookie notices on websites for users with visual impairments (VI) via a set of system studies on top UK websites (n=46) and a user study (n=100). We use a set of methods and tools—including accessibility testing tools, text-only browsers, and screen readers—to perform our system studies. Our results demonstrate that the majority of cookie notices on these websites have some form of accessibility issue, including contrast issues, not having headings, and not being read aloud immediately when the page is loaded. We discuss how such practices impact the user experience and privacy and provide a set of recommendations for multiple stakeholders for more accessible websites and better privacy practices for users with VIs. To complement our technical contribution, we conduct a user study, finding that people with VIs generally have a negative view of cookie notices and believe our recommendations could help their online experience.