An Approach to Providing Remote Debugging Feedback without Revealing Sensitive Information

Author : Gibson, Emily; Pollock, Lori
Booktitle : Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Date : Oct 2006
Keyword(s) : debugging, security
Document Type : Presentation
BibTeX Entry : (show)

Abstract :

Software users inevitably have to send an error report to the software developer so that the developer may fix a bug. Privacy-conscious users have been forced to either send sensitive data to the developer or send no error report at all—and potentially never have the bug fixed. Previous work suggests either performing the debugging process at the user site or collecting enough random data such that no individual user can be identified. Until now, users have not had a systematic way of evaluating the amount of sensitive information revealed by an error report. In this poster we present a method of viewing the information revealed by path-based debugging feedback. Depending on the severity of the bug, the user may then decide whether the amount of information revealed is acceptable. Our approach enables the user to feel confident the developer will gain no sensitive information, while still providing valuable debugging feedback.

Presentation Link