Passwords can be a challenge; many require symbols, have character length restrictions, or require words that aren't found in the dictionary. In a changing world where our Internet passwords protect an uncanny amount of information, it has become more important to understand why people choose passwords, how to create safe passwords, and how to store the passwords we have created. Dr. Lorrie Cranor, of Carnegie Mellon University, focuses on the human side of computer security and privacy. She studies how people work and use technology and then she and her team apply these findings to create more usable privacy and security solutions. Besides studying passwords, Dr. Cranor is working on tools to help people protect their privacy on social networks, understand privacy policies, avoid falling for phishing attacks, and keep their teenagers safe without invading their privacy. Dr. Cranor has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability (O'Reilly 2005) and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS).

Dr. Cranor's goal is to develop scientifically-validated processes and design patterns, and create guidelines that will provide a roadmap for system designers to build systems that are simultaneously usable and secure. At the intersection of several disciplines including human-computer interaction, computer security, privacy, public policy, social science, and engineering, Dr. Cranor hopes to make computer security and privacy easier for users. These interactions influence technology design decisions that, in turn, shape the possibilities for our social and business interactions. Through a multidisciplinary approach to privacy and security research, Dr. Cranor is working to gain a holistic understanding of privacy and security requirements in contexts where tensions exist, and to develop and scientifically validate solutions that address these requirements. Dr. Cranor is frequently invited to Capitol Hill to discuss her research with policy makers including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and Congress. 

Current research includes:

• Secure Passwords: Dr. Cranor's research group is working on making passwords more secure, without making them hard to remember and use. They are analyzing tens of thousands of passwords created by participants in their studies and collected from leaked password sets, to determine how people create passwords in various contexts. Dr. Cranor and her team are running studies to compare the usability and security of various password policies in order to find those that offer the best balance of security and usability.

• Privacy Policies: We know that nobody wants to spend time reading lengthy privacy policies filled with legalese, so Dr. Cranor and her team are developing approaches to make privacy policies easier to understand quickly both on websites and in mobile apps. Dr. Cranor developed and tested a "privacy nutrition label" and is now working on privacy plugins for web browsers. She and her team are also developing techniques so that personal web browsers can read privacy policies for users so they don't have to. They have also been studying online trackers and looking for ways to help users understand when they are being tracked and prevent tracking.

• Teenagers and Parents: Dr. Cranor and her team have been interviewing teenagers and parents of teens to understand how they think about privacy and how they balance the teen's need for privacy and parents' desire to monitor their teens enough to keep them safe. Dr. Cranor wants to build tools to help facilitate communication between teens and parents and provide parents with some awareness of what their teens are doing, while giving teens some privacy.