An Alternative Information Web for Visually Impaired Users
in Developing Countries

Nitendra Rajput, Sheetal Agarwal, Arun Kumar, Amit Anil Nanavati

IBM Research Division
IBM India Research Lab
4, Block C, ISID Campus, Vasant Kunj
New Delhi - 110070, India.


This paper presents an alternate platform — the World Wide Telecom Web (WWTW), for delivering information and services to the visually impaired. WWTW is a network of VoiceSites that can be created and accessed by a voice interaction over an ordinary phone. The researchers presented user studies which demonstrate that the learning curve for using applications on the Telecom Web is relatively low and does not require extensive training. With this study, the researchers believe that the Telecom Web can be the mainstream Web for blind users. Websites in World Wide Web are primarily meant for visual consumption. Accessibility tools such as screen readers that render the visual content in audio format enable the visually impaired to access information on the websites. Despite standards that are available to make websites more amenable for screen reading softwares, not many website authors embed the required metadata information that feeds into such tools. Moreover, the wide variety of visual controls available makes it harder to interpret the websites with screen readers. This problem of accessing information and services on the web escalates even further for visually impaired in developing regions since they are either semi- literate/illiterate or cannot afford computers and high-end phones with screen reading capability. This problem is addressed by this study.

Nowadays, for a common person, access to information is a key requirement. Over the last decade, the World Wide Web has grown tremendously to become the largest source of information. It is also being used by governments and enterprises to provide services to their citizens and customers. It is being used by most people today. With this, how about those people who are visually impaired? Because of increasing efforts of addressing these problems, there are several existing efforts at making the content on the Web accessible to visually impaired users. These include software tools such as screen readers, web accessibility standards and government laws to make websites accessible. In this connection, the paper presented the Telecom Web as an alternative to World Wide Web for delivering information services to visually impaired people. Telecom Web provides a low-cost, completely accessible platform, especially for people in developing countries. The researchers performed usability study with a sample VoiceSite and derived interesting insights. I found this paper interesting since it also presented several potential applications that can be delivered to the blind population through the Telecom Web.
The paper was also made interesting since the researchers also included illustrations on their study especially with the results making the paper more comprehensible by readers although some of the terms were not properly explained.


Towards Trustworthy Kiosk Computing

Scott Garris
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburg, PA

Ramon Caceres, Stefan Berger, Reiner Sailer, Leendert van Doorn, Xiaolan Zhang
IBM Research Division
Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 704
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598


This paper presents a system in which a user, by leveraging the capabilities of a personal mobile device such as smartphone, gains a degree of trust in kiosk prior to using it. Trust is the expectation that a computer system will faithfully perform its intended purpose. The researchers refer to a kiosk as trustworthy if they can verify the identity and integrity of the software running on that kiosk. Public computing kiosks, such as an airline check-I terminal at an airport or a rental computer at an Internet café, have become common place. A problem with current kiosks is that the user must assume that a kiosk is performing only its intended function, or more specifically, that it has not been compromised by an attacker. A compromised kiosk could harm the user by, e.g., stealing private data. Similarly, the owner of a kiosk wants to ensure that the kiosk is not used to perform malicious acts for which he may be liable. The paper presented a system in which a user controls a personal mobile device to establish trust on a public computing device, or kiosk, prior to revealing personal information to that kiosk. The researchers designed and implemented a protocol by which the mobile device determines the identity and integrity of the software running on the kiosk. A similar protocol simultaneously allows a kiosk owner to verify that the kiosk is running only approved software.

The researchers have made this paper concise and direct to the point. This made the paper understandable even though the word kiosk was not properly defined. I think if a person who is not that exposed to the computer terms may not really know what this paper meant. I think more emphasis on the topic can be a solution to this. On the other hand, the researchers presented very well the system design of the system and prototype implementation. The researchers also used an illustration on the Kiosk Computing Scenario. Based on what I have read on this paper, trust and integrity is the main issue.


A New Schema for Security in Dynamic Uncertain Environments

Dakshi Agrawal
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center


The hypothesis presented in this paper is that for a complex system of systems operating in a dynamic, uncertain environment the traditional approach of forward, static security is insufficient. What is required are macroscopic schemata for security that incorporate mechanisms which monitor the overall environment and feed their observations back into the security mechanisms so that they can adjust their ‘posture’ accordingly. Such schemata must also account for system-wide aggregated security risks in addition to risk presented by the individual users and information objects. With this, the researcher proposed one such schema in this work. It is the uncertainty and dynamicity in the operating environment that ask the most penetrating questions from the current security solutions. In the early days, computers were largely isolated from each other, had limited software functionality, and their users were technically sophisticated, resulting in an environment that was well-controlled. The properties of a security mechanism could be proved under a ‘clean room’ security – model that was not too far from the reality. However, computers have since then transformed into computing devices of all shapes and sizes; the functionality has grown exponentially and the user base has expanded to include technical equivalent of laity. While current state of the art in computer security has addressed many challenges rising from these changes, it has failed to systematically address the most basic change; namely, there is a lot more uncertainty and dynamism in the operating environment and the context of computing systems today than it was a few decades ago.

The paper explained the new schema proposed by the researcher. Two examples of a security schema for access control that addresses the problems being mentioned in the paper was presented by the researcher. With those examples mentioned, the researcher investigated on how the proposed new schema can be used to provide interesting insights into the design of access-control systems. The paper, in connection with the examples given, also showed illustrations which relates to the examples.