Date of Award

5-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering (MSECE)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Chair

Alexander Quinn

Committee Member 1

Vijay Raghunathan

Committee Member 2

Hong Z. Tan

Abstract

The future of crowdsourcing depends on improving usability for the requesters who post jobs. Allowing workers to perform tasks directly on a requester’s computer could help, by obviating the need to adapt data into formats that a crowdsourcing platform can handle. However, granting remote access to a requester’s desktop would also pose the risk the workers might steal information or take malicious actions. This thesis presents SafeguaRDP, an architecture designed to enable future services in which a mediated and redacted desktop is shown to a remote worker. The redaction of the desktop does not modify any files on the desktop; it only changes what is shown to the worker. This thesis contributes the rationale behind the architecture as well as a threat analysis based on accepted software security principles. To place the SafeguaRDP architecture in context, a set of eight vignettes illustrate potential applications that would be possible with future services based on the SafeguaRDP architecture. With these applications, the transfer of digital labor may someday become as simple as the transfer of data today, all while preserving the privacy of the hiring party.

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