Spiny CACTOS: OSN Users Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Cryptographic Access Control Tools

Cryptographic access control tools for online social networks (CACTOS) allow users to enforce their privacy settings online without relying on the social network provider or any other third party. Many such tools have been proposed in the literature, some of them implemented and currently publicly available, and yet they have seen poor or no adoption at all. In this paper we investigate which obstacles may be hindering the adoption of these tools. To this end, we perform a user study to inquire users about key issues related to the desirability and general perception of CACTOS. Our results suggest that, even if social network users would be potentially interested in these tools, several issues would effectively obstruct their adoption. Participants in our study perceived that CACTOS are a disproportionate means to protect their privacy online. This in turn may have been motivated by the explicit use of cryptography or the fact that users do not actually share on social networks the type of information they would feel the need to encrypt. Moreover, in this paper we point out to several key elements that are to be considered for the improvement and better usability of CACTOS.