CAREER: Systems for the emerging patterns of content exchange

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

We are at the beginning of a fundamental shift in how content is created and exchanged over the Internet. While content was previously created primarily by a small minority of organizations, now, individual users--empowered by the popularity of digital devices and social networks, as well as the ubiquity of Internet access--are creating content that represents a significant fraction of Internet traffic. Unfortunately, existing techniques and infrastructure are ill-suited for the new patterns of content creation and exchange, resulting in a mismatch of infrastructure and workload that is evident in places ranging from the ways in which content is distributed to the ways in users are able to express access control. To make matters worse, existing providers have been slow to develop new techniques, as their current business models are often heavily reliant on existing approaches. Intellectual Merit: Motivated by these trends, this project is developing systems, networks, and distribution architectures that are tailored to the changing patterns of content creation and exchange, enabling users to freely exchange content and express meaningful privacy policies for end user-generated content. Broader Impact: Fully delegating the responsibility for addressing these challenges to industry risks entrenching the providers of today into a position of ensuring that content can only be shared in ways that are in-line with their business interests. Thus, the impact of the proposed research will be potentially felt by all users of online social networks, and will thus have significant public impact.