Technology has become an inherent part of our daily lives. If we don’t want to abstain from the benefits technology brings, we have to acknowledge the fact that tech generates data and adjust our norms and habits to it. This thesis critiques how corporations and governmental institutions collect, store and analyze data of individuals. It discusses the economic and technological forces that stand behind the collection and usage of data in the past, today, and the near future. Beyond that, it alludes to political implications. The overarching goal is to stimulate reflection about culture and future. To achieve that, the design of an interactive educational web story within the browser is proposed. A curated personal data platform in combination with interactive web stories make data collection, data usage, and the risks of data aggregation visible. Business practices and interests are rendered transparent on the basis of users’ actual online behavior and exposure. The web stories allows to understand the meaning and value of the data traces users leave online. In five chapters, they experience the basic technologies of the Internet, business motivations, and surveillance practices in the context of their individual web browsing behavior. Each chapter invites to explore details of the topic to accommodate for individual need and interest in the matter. A critical reflection on the future of data collection is encouraged, tools and settings within the browser help users to protect their digital identities.

This bachelor thesis is about the human identity in the postmodern society, and how it changes throughout the paradigm shift we’re going forward into. What kind of impact do the various blogs have on their public concerning the consumption of brands and fashion? And how come various big brands choose to do their product placement on specific blogs? In this thesis I will discuss and compare the changes from how we used to show our status in the society in the past and how we do it today with digital tools.  Why are people so urged to show others in the society who they are, and how come we do it by wearing specific clothes and brands that other tells us to wear in order to have a higher status? These phenomena’s reflects the way we build our identity today. The other aspect of the digitalization I’m discussing in this thesis is the importance of package-design in order to attract costumers to the physical store, and maintain the brand-loyalty during the transition for the stores.

This thesis is a project-based work accompanied by this short, written component. Entitled, Radical Roleplayers, the project takes the form of a digital roleplaying blog in which the the translation of roleplaying and identity performance is translated from a digital space to the organic, or “real world” environment. The blog serves to critically dissect my own roleplaying, and to challenge what it means to be a roleplayer both in gamespace and online by stepping outside of the rules that allow the community to remain insular and uncontested. Radical Roleplayers explores how I, as a gamer, identify with my digital self, and how I have explored identity through my avatars, role playing games, and game creation. In the form of roleplaying journals, videos, and other digital content, the blog challenges what we know about gaming, identity, and roleplaying, and explore ways in which the notion of radical play allows gamers to develop methods of resistance, expression, control, and safety. Please navigate to http://radicalroleplayers.tumblr.com/ to experience the project.

The purpose of this study has been to examine the construction of identities that are taking place when Swedish children and teenagers are, according to their local social services, in need of a family home. We have collected and analyzed data in the form of advertisement that is publicly available from the Swedish website Familjehemsbanken.se. It is a kind of marketplace that specializes as a go-between for the local social services in different Swedish municipalities and the presumptive local family homes. The descriptions of the children were looked at through a social constructionism lens where we identified patterns and different themes to which we assigned our own meanings or interpretations, based on the analyzed data and previous research and theories. What we found were broadly categorized into three themes; descriptions that were aiming to sell the kids to prospective buyers (family homes), descriptions that highlighted certain issues or problems that the child needed support with or descriptions that we considered neutral or ambivalent. As we conclude in the study, the descriptions in the last category could also be interpreted as either good or bad, depending on the reader and their own values and life experience. Our results show that even though child auctions (in essence: a form of economic slavery) were abolished in Sweden in 1918, today’s Swedish society are still dealing with socially vulnerable children as they – in practice – are still commodities on a marketplace. The methods and language may have changed, but the end result is still strikingly similar to what happened over a hundred years ago. One of the biggest challenges the authors faced was that it doesn’t exist any previous Swedish research on the subject at hand. We would argue, however, that the marketization of socially vulnerable children is an important issue that should be more deeply and thoroughly researched by further studies on the subject.

Η διδακτορική διατριβή με τίτλο «Σχεδιασμός και υλοποίηση συστήματος διαχείρισης και ενοποίησης διαφορετικών ταυτοτήτων χρηστών σε δίκτυα νέας γενιάς» πραγματεύεται την οργάνωση και διαχείριση των ταυτοτήτων χρηστών σε ένα ενοποιημένο δικτυακό περιβάλλον αποτελούμενο από διαφορετικά δίκτυα, τεχνολογίες και υπηρεσίες. Η διατριβή, αρχικά εξετάζει τις προτεινόμενες αρχιτεκτονικές και υπηρεσίες του Μελλοντικού Διαδικτύου και ανάμεσα στα προβλήματα που παρουσιάζονται επικεντρώνεται στην επίλυση της Διαχείρισης Ψηφιακών Ταυτοτήτων (Identity Management – IdM). Μέχρι τώρα οι προτεινόμενες λύσεις είναι λειτουργικές μόνο κάτω από συγκεκριμένες συνθήκες, όπως π.χ. την εφαρμογή νέων παγκόσμιων προσδιοριστικών ή τη δημιουργία μεγάλων ομοσπονδιών εμπιστοσύνης. Στην πράξη όμως τέτοιες πρακτικές δεν μπορούν να υιοθετηθούν από μεγάλης κλίμακας δίκτυα. Σε αντίθεση με αυτές τις προσεγγίσεις, η συγκεκριμένη διατριβή προτείνει τον σχεδιασμό ενός συστήματος που θα έχει ως σκοπό να βοηθάει τα εκάστοτε πλαίσια (δίκτυα, ομοσπονδίες, παρόχους κ.τ.λ.) να αντιμετωπίζουν μόνα τους τα προβλήματα διαχείρισης ταυτοτήτων που παρουσιάζονται στις υπηρεσίες τους. Για να επιτευχθεί αυτό, αρχικά αποδεικνύεται πως είναι αναγκαίος ο διαχωρισμός της διαδικασίας ανακάλυψης δεδομένων που σχετίζονται με τις ψηφιακές ταυτότητες, από τις υπόλοιπες διαδικασίες διαχείρισης (π.χ. ανταλλαγή δεδομένων μεταξύ παρόχων). Με βάση αυτή την προσέγγιση δημιουργήθηκε το σύστημα DIMANDS, το οποίο δίνει την δυνατότητα στους παρόχους να ανακαλύπτουν τα δεδομένα ταυτότητας που απαιτούνται για την ολοκλήρωση μιας δεδομένης υπηρεσίας, ενώ παράλληλα τους επιτρέπει να διαχειρίζονται αυτόνομα τις υπόλοιπες διαδικασίες που σχετίζονται με την υπηρεσία αυτή. Το σύστημα πληροί όλες τις απαιτήσεις ασφάλειας, εμπιστοσύνης, διαφύλαξης ιδιοαπόρρητου και απόδοσης ενός μεγάλης κλίμακας συστήματος διαχείρισης ψηφιακών ταυτοτήτων. Αυτό αποδεικνύεται από προσομοιώσεις που έγιναν στο περιβάλλον εξομοίωσης OPNET. Τέλος σημειώνεται πως ένα δοκιμαστικό σενάριο χρήσης του συστήματος υλοποιήθηκε σε περιβάλλον Ruby on Rails. / This PhD thesis entitled “Design and implementation of a system for the management and unification of users’ diverse identities in next generation networks” examines the organization and management of users’ identity data in a unified network environment composed by diverse networks, technologies and services. The dissertation, initially examines the proposed future Internet architectures and services and among the identified problems, it focuses on the management of Digital Identities (Identity Management – IdM). Until now, the proposed solutions are only functional if specific conditions are met, such as the implementation of new global identifiers or creating large scale federations of trust. In practice though, these conditions cannot be enforced in large-scale networks. Contrary to these approaches, this dissertation proposes the design of a system capable of helping the individual contexts (federations, networks, service providers, etc.) to independently deal with their own identity management problems that appear in their services. To achieve this, initially we prove that it is necessary to separate the process of discovering identity related data from the all the rest of the identity management procedures (e.g. data exchange between providers). Based on this approach we created DIMANDS, a system which allows providers to discover the necessary data required to complete a specific service, while enabling them to manage autonomously the remaining procedures associated with this service. The system meets all the requirements of security, trust, privacy and performance of a large scale identity management system. This is evidenced by simulations made in the OPNET simulation environment. Finally it must be noted that a demo based on the system’s functionality was implemented in Ruby on Rails environment.

"Forschung meets Business" - diese Kombination hat in den vergangenen Jahren immer wieder zu zahlreichen interessanten und fruchtbaren Diskussionen geführt. Mit dem Symposium "Sicherheit in Service-orientierten Architekturen" führt das Hasso-Plattner-Institut diese Tradition fort und lud alle Interessenten zu einem zweitägigen Symposium nach Potsdam ein, um gemeinsam mit Fachvertretern aus der Forschung und Industrie über die aktuellen Entwicklungen im Bereich Sicherheit von SOA zu diskutieren. Die im Rahmen dieses Symposiums vorgestellten Beiträge fokussieren sich auf die Sicherheitsthemen "Sichere Digitale Identitäten und Identitätsmanagement", "Trust Management", "Modell-getriebene SOA-Sicherheit", "Datenschutz und Privatsphäre", "Sichere Enterprise SOA", und "Sichere IT-Infrastrukturen". / 'Research meets Business' is the successful concept of the SOA Security Symposia held at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute that has lead to interesting discussions in the community. The SOA Security Symposium 2010 continued this tradition and invited researchers and representatives from the industry to discuss concepts, issues, and solution in the field of SOA Security. The topics presented in the scope of this symposium focused on the security related topics 'Secure Digital Identities and Identity Management', 'Trust Management', 'Model-driven SOA Security', 'Privacy',' Secure Enterprise SOA', and 'Secure IT-Infrastructures'.

Fastigheter identifieras av många som ett relativt illikvitt tillgångsslag vars information även ivissa avseenden kan anses vara opak för den öppna marknaden. Detta resulterar i långa ochkostsamma köp- och säljprocesser, där informationsasymmetrier mellan köpare och säljaremåste redas ut under en due diligence process. Fastighetsmarknaden präglas således av en delvisoönskad ineffektivitet orsakad av traditionella och konservativa processer. I en tid av storteknisk utveckling finner vi allt fler kreativa lösningar på problem vi tidigare inte mäktade medatt ta oss an. Blockchain har identifierats som en av de tekniker som potentiellt kan komma attförbättra såväl fastighetsmarknadens likviditet som transparens. Närmare bestämt diskuterarman en standardiserad informationshantering för fastigheter i form av digitala identiteter, menäven möjligheten att fragmentera ägandet och tillgängliggöra momentan handel viablockchainbaserade tokens. Dessa begrepp är ännu relativt outforskade och utgör såledesstudieämnet. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att redogöra för hur fastighetsmarknadenslikviditet- och transparensproblematik potentiellt kan avhjälpas genom ett fragmenterat ochtransparent fastighetsägande placerat på blockchain.Studiens akademiska förankring grundar sig i en omfattande litteraturstudie av begreppenlikviditet och transparens, men även bena ut betydelsen av due diligence och blockchain somhelhet. Resultatinsamlingen genomfördes via kvalitativa studier, där semistruktureradeintervjuer utgjorde mediet från vilken denna information insamlades. I studienidentifierades likviditet och transparens som två grundförutsättningar för en fungerande ocheffektiv marknadsplats. I fastighetsmarknaden finns det tydliga tecken på att problematiken gersig tillkänna i trögrörliga DD-processer och undanhållen informationen av hyresdata. Slutsatsenav studien kan sammanfattas som en brett överenskommen bild av potentialen hos såväl tokenssom digitala identiteter för att effektivisera marknaden och lösa dessa problem.Marknadsaktörerna menar dock att tekniken omges av för många orosmoln för att våga kastasig in med båda fötterna före. Med det sagt menar man inte att tekniken saknar framtid i branschen, snarare att fler tillämpade exempel samt ett tydligt ramverk för utförandet avtransaktioner i den nya marknadsmiljön måste bestämmas för att på så sätt etablera en trygghethos investerare. / Real estate is defined as a relatively illiquid asset, with a rather opaque and inaccessible flowof information. The result is long and costly acquisition and divestment processes, in whichinformational asymmetries is to be erased during the due diligence process. Real estate is thuscharacterized by a partially unwanted inefficiency caused by traditional and conservativeprocesses. However, in a time of rapid and extensive technological change, we seem to find anever-increasing amount of creative solutions to problems we previously could not manage.Among these alleged solutions we find blockchain, which by many has been identified as meanto improve both liquidity and transparency in real estate as an asset class. More specifically, thetopics of discussions have been digital identities and tokenization of real estate. Two termspossessing the potential to create standardized information management and fragmentedownership, which would enable instantaneous trade. These terms remain rather unchartedterritory and hence constitutes the subject of this study. The aim of this study is therefore todepict how the liquidity and transparency problems may be redressed by a fragmented andtransparent ownership structure placed on blockchain.The academic anchoring of the study is grounded in an extensive literature study aimed to definethe terms liquidity and transparency, but also define the meaning of due diligence andblockchain technology as a whole. The results were gathered through qualitative studies, inwhich semi-structured interviews constituted the instrument from which the information wascollected. The study identified liquidity and transparency as two cornerstones of a functioningand effective market. The evident problems related to liquidity and transparency in real estate,are to a great extent expressed via slow paced due diligence processes and non-disclosed rentalinformation. The study may be concluded as a broadly agreed upon view on the potential ofboth tokenization of real estate, as well as digital identities as effective means to enhanceliquidity and transparency. The respondents did however emphasize the current uncertaintyregarding blockchain as a severe hindrance for having enough confidence to whole-heartedly embrace the technology as a key element of the real estate market. With this being said, theydo not doubt its potential, rather inquiring an increased number of applied and successful usecases accompanied by a distinct regulatory framework for the conducting a transaction in thenew market environment. This would be an essential factor to instill the level of trust intransacting that investors require.

The real estate industry is one of the global sectors that have a strong relation to economic growth, where the commercial real estate (CRE) market has a significant impact in financial stability. Commercial real estate has several unique features that characterize the asset. Some of these are the stable cash flow, the stable demand and the low volatility, which contributes to the underlying value. However, the industry is considered to be illiquid due to the lack of transparency in its transactions, such as in commercial leasing, where trust in the commercial leasing processes and between an CRE owner and their tenants has been lacking. Nowadays, there are an increased number of actors involved in these processes, both from the tenant side and the owner side, to decrease the information asymmetries between both sides. This has complicated the market, leading to information loss in the communication pathways. Blockchain is viewed to be a disruptive innovative technology that will revolutionize the real estate industry with several applications, such as tokenization, smart contracts and digital identities. In previous research, blockchain has been studied as a financial approach and how it relates to real estate as a legal instrument and as an application on the transaction market to increase transparency and liquidity. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how blockchain can be applied in the commercial real estate leasing market from an CRE owner perspective. In order to answer the research questions and the research aim, the study took form of a qualitative research, with an inductive approach. The collected data was collected through a literature review and through semi-structured interviews with relevant actors for the research aim. The results illustrate that blockchain can be applied in the leasing processes for commercial real estate owners through tokenization, smart contracts and digital identities. In particular, the ability to store and validate information has been the major argument for implementing the technology as the market is in an acclimatizing position, where traditional analog business processes are shifting towards being increasingly digital. / Fastighetsbranschen är en av de globala sektorerna som har en stark korrelation till ekonomisk tillväxt, där den kommersiella fastighetsmarknaden har en betydande inverkan för finansiell stabilitet. Kommersiella fastigheter har flera unika egenskaper som kännetecknar tillgången. Några av dessa är det stabila kassaflödet, den stabila efterfrågan och den låga volatiliteten, vilket bidrar till det underliggande värdet. Dock anses branschen vara illikvid på grund av bristande transparens i dess transaktioner, exempelvis inom kommersiella uthyrningar, där förtroendet för de kommersiella uthyrningsprocesserna och mellan fastighetsägare samt deras hyresgäster har varit bristande. Nuförtiden finns det ett ökat antal aktörer involverade i dessa processer, både från hyresgästen och från hyresvärden, för att minska på informationsasymmetrin mellan båda sidor. Detta har komplicerat marknaden, vilket har lett till att information försvinner via kommunikationsvägarna. Blockkedjan anses vara en innovativ teknik som kommer att revolutionera fastighetsbranschen med dess applikationer, där tokenisering, smarta kontrakt och digitala identiteter utgör några av dessa. I tidigare forskning har blockkedjan studerats som ett finansiellt verktyg och hur tekniken relaterar till fastigheter som ett rättsligt instrument, men även som en applicering på transaktionsmarknaden, i syfte att öka transparensen samt likviditeten. Syftet med denna avhandling är att undersöka hur blockkedjan kan tillämpas på den kommersiella uthyrningsmarknaden ur ett ägarperspektiv. För att kunna besvara forskningsfrågorna och syftet har avhandlingen strukturerats som en kvalitativ studie, med ett induktivt tillvägagångsätt. Empirin samlades in från en litteraturstudie samt genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer med relevanta aktörer i marknaden. Resultatet visar att blockkedjan kan appliceras i de kommersiella uthyrningsprocesserna ur ett ägarperspektiv genom tokenisering, smarta kontrakt och digitala identiteter. I synnerhet har teknikens egenskap att kunna lagra och validera information på ett säkert och förtroendegivande sätt varit det viktigaste skälet till att implementera tekniken då marknaden befinner sig i en acklimatiserande fas, där traditionella analoga affärsprocesser skiftar till att bli alltmer digitala.