Lorrie Faith Cranor Oral History

Abstract

This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. At the start of the interview, Professor Lorrie Faith Cranor discusses early interests and studies in computer science and engineering & public policy at Washington University in St. Louis. This includes her dissertation, a pioneering work on computer voting systems. She then relates her work on privacy, security, and policy at AT&T laboratories following her D.Sc. for about a half dozen years and then transitioning to leave the lab to become a professor of Computer Science and of Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Cranor talks about launching an event and co-editing an influential edited volume, that led to her founding and early General Chair leadership of Symposium on User Privacy and Security (SOUPS). With a focus on this area, she also launched a research lab, the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security (CUPS) Laboratory and educational program with NSF support. This unique focus is not matched anywhere globally and Cranor and her team’s work have been central to bringing together researchers and understanding at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer security and privacy. She also discusses her evolving research in many areas including but not limited to phishing, cyber trust indicators, passwords, etc., as well as her year as Chief Technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission. Cranor, a master quilter, also relates how engineering quilts involve overlapping engineering principles with her design work in computer science.