Computer users have been taught for years that computer security systems can't be effective unless they are complex and difficult to use. In reality, this conventional wisdom is completely wrong. Tomorrow's computers won't be secure unless researchers, designers, and programmers can invent new ways to make security systems easier to use-so easy, in fact, that they seem to melt away entirely.
Security and Usability provides a window into the future of computer security. The first book describing this emerging and critically important field, it collects 34 groundbreaking essays from leading security, usability, and human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers around the world. Topics include: Realigning Usability and Security-psychological acceptability, designing for actual (not theoretical) security, tools for usability evaluation, and trust designs and models, Authentication Mechanisms-password memorability, challenge questions, graphical passwords, biometrics, keystroke dynamics, smart cards, and USB tokens, Secure Systems-secure interaction design, anti-phishing, sanitization and usability, usable PKI, compartmentalized security, and ethnographic analysis, Privacy and Anonymity Systems-privacy design pitfalls, the Privacy Space Framework, the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), web bugs, informed consent on the Internet, social approaches to security, and anonymizing technologies, Commercializing Usability-vendor experiences in addressing usability issues at Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, Firefox, Zone Labs, and Groove Networks.

Security and Usability pulls together research findings, actual implementation experiences, practical advice, and recommendations for constructing next-generation applications and operating systems. Edited by Lorrie Faith Cranor, DSc, and Simson Garfinkel, PhD, this volume is destined to become both a classic reference and an inspiration for future research.