Community-Based Security and Privacy Ratings for Internet Websites

Using the internet people often don’t know which websites they can trust and which websites are possible fake. Another important information that is usually not easily accessible is how many personal data a website collects from its users. Methods like SSL certificates or extended validation certificates help encrypting the flow information and are able to guarantee that this domain is at least known to the certification authority.

With the big success of community based services in general and the emergence of community based rating websites the questions arises why not letting internet users judge the trustworthiness of web pages. Big websites like eBay or amazon use the concept to judge sellers or products for years.

In this thesis a browser plugin should be created that enabled the user to rate security and privacy of a website. The aggregated ratings can be viewed by other plugin users. In case a website is untrusted or has not yet been rated different actions are taken. Development of this plugin also includes the development of a backend engine to process plugin data.

In a field test the plugin should be evaluated by a small community of invited users rating their experience with it in different questionnaires.

• Find related work to the topic of security and privacy in web browsers as well as for community rating systems
• Create a browser plugin and a backend that is able to display and to submit user ratings for privacy and security
• Roll out the plugin to a selected community and evaluate it by at least three different online questionnaires
• Written thesis and presentation of the work