(We created the Comcast Innovation Fund to support important research into the future of the Internet, with a focus on broadband, security and open-source development. In this series, we highlight grantees and their work.)

The Comcast Innovation Fund is pleased to announce the award of a grant to the Indiana University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. This grant will be under the direction of Professor L. Jean Camp, a Fellow of the AAAS who also serves as the Director of the Security & Privacy in Informatics, Computing and Engineering (SPICE) Center.  This grant will support research into methods to empower consumers in the Internet of Things (IoT).

This research project aims to develop and test a consumer-oriented interaction for the IoT domain with a linked backend rating system. The research will evaluate the system with controlled experiments and statistical analyses with the goal of creating a reliable information source for consumers to use in evaluating IoT technologies.

The researchers say their goal is to provide an interaction and set of standards that consumers can use to rate the security impact of IoT devices on their home networks. The work will be published in security journals, security workshops, and interdisciplinary venues.