Secure email systems that use end-to-end encryption are the best method we have for ensuring user privacy and security in email communication. However, the adoption of secure email remains low, with previous studies suggesting mainly that secure email is too complex or inconvenient to use. However, the perspectives of those who have, in fact, chosen to use an encrypted email system are largely overlooked. To understand these perspectives, we conducted a semi-structured interview study that aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mindsets underlying adoption and use of secure email services. Our participants come from a variety of countries and vary in the amount of time they have been using secure email, how often they use it, and whether they use it as their primary account. Our results uncover that a defining reason for adopting a secure email system is to avoid surveillance from big tech companies. However, regardless of the complexity and accuracy of a person's mental model, our participants rarely send and receive encrypted emails, thus not making full use of the privacy they could obtain. These findings indicate that secure email systems could potentially find greater adoption by appealing to their privacy advantages, but privacy gains will be limited until a critical mass are able to join these systems and easily send encrypted emails to each other.

4 Abstract Background: Insufficient physical activity is one of the leading modifiable risk factors responsible for numerous chronic diseases and for premature death. Walking can be considered as the most natural form of physical activity and can be easily incorporated into many activities of daily living. Interventions aimed at promoting walking could substantially contribute towards increasing physical activity levels of the most sedentary individuals; within these interventions, pedometers are commonly used as effective motivational instruments to increase walking in healthy adults and across a range clinical conditions. Additional counseling provided in regular intervals throughout the intervention period can positively influence patients' adherence and help patients overcome certain psychological or lifestyle barriers, ultimately increasing physical activity. Objectives: The main objectives are: (1) To evaluate the feasibility of a pedometer-based walking intervention supplemented with a counseling component in a pilot randomized controlled trial. (2) To assess the preliminary efficacy of the intervention on PA levels and health-related outcomes, including measures of mental health and health-related quality of life. (3) To qualitatively explore the views of patients participating in the intervention....

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Passwords are a very convenient way to authenticate. In terms of simplicity and portability they are very difficult to match. Nevertheless, current password-based login mechanisms are vulnerable to phishing attacks and typically require users to create and manage a new password for each of their accounts. This research investigates the potential for indirect/decentralized approaches to improve password-based authentication. Adoption of a decentralized authentication mechanism requires the agreement between users and service providers on a trusted third party that vouches for users' identities. Email providers are the de facto trusted third parties on the Internet. Proof of email address ownership is typically required to both create an account and to reset a password when it is forgotten. Despite its shortcomings (e.g., latency, vulnerability to passive attack), this approach is a practical solution to the difficult problem of authenticating strangers on the Internet. This research utilizes this emergent, lightweight relationship with email providers to offload primary user authentication from service providers; thus reducing the need for service provider-specific passwords. Our goal is to provide decentralized authentication that maintains the convenience and portability of passwords, while improving its assurances (especially against phishing). Our first step to leverage this emergent trust, Simple Authentication for the Web (SAW), improves the security and convenience of email-based authentications and moves them from the background into the forefront, replacing need for an account-specific password. Wireless Authenticationg using Remote Passwords (WARP) adapts the principles of SAW to authentication in wireless networks. Lightweight User AUthentication (Luau) improves upon WARP and unifies user authentication across the application and network (especially wireless) layers. Our final protocol, pwdArmor, started as a simple wrapper to facilitate the use of existing databases of password verifiers in Luau, but grew into a generic middleware framework that augments the assurances of conventional password protocols.

None of the three largest webmail service providers (serving over 1 billion users) support end-to-end message encryption. Encrypted email has never seen mass adoption because it is prohibitive for non-experts to use. Private WebMail (Pwm) is our extension to popular webmail systems that lets users easily encrypt sensitive messages without having to first contact the recipient and share information. It is designed to spread quickly in a grassroots fashion so that a user receiving their first encrypted message can quickly and easily start using the system. This thesis describes the design and implementation of Pwm, then measures its usability through analysis and a user study.

Billions of web-based email and chat messages are sent over the Internet every day. However, very few service providers support end-to-end privacy protection. While providing security for these messages is technically feasible, usability remains a challenge in this field. Recent research attempts to hide security details like key management and encryption in order to make the system more usable. However usability studies demonstrated that hiding these details may confuse the user and contribute to mistakes (e.g., sending out an email in plaintext when the user thought it would be encrypted). In an effort to increase trust and eliminate mistakes, this thesis presents the design of a browser-based manual encryption mechanism that supports automatic key-management and manual encryption. It also describes the Message Protector (MP) prototype. An evaluations of MP is presented based on a user study conducted on the campus of BYU.

Communicating data-driven and personalized marketing content is today common among large B2C businesses with loyalty programs. Email has become the standard digital channel for this type of communication as it offers high cost-efficiency among digital channels and great possibilities for creating appealing content customized to the customer. This thesis aims to identify what effects personalized communication through email can lead to within loyalty programs and whether businesses should invest in personalized email communication. The methodology consisted of two quantitative case studies in the form of data analysis on eleven personalized  newsletters and one activation email for a business in the fuel and convenience industry. A series of qualitative interviews with individuals that work in the field of personalized communication was also conducted. The results show that the loyalty members to a large extent accept the communication and are exposed to the personalized content. The emails in the form of monthly newsletters did not show any consistent positive effects on increased sales, store visits or in upsell. The activation email, which was part of the activation phase in the customer lifecycle, showed greater promise as it increased number of visits and led to a positive overall upsell. Additional effects in the form of switching costs and brand awareness were also identified, as long as the content reaches the customers personalization is deemed relevant. Otherwise it risks alienating them as customers today expects digital marketing to be personalized. In summary, the effects of personalized email justifies investing in it, but one should be aware of what effects to expect. / Kommunikation av data driven och individanpassad marknadsföring är idag vanligt bland stora kundbaserade företag med lojalitetsprogram. E-post har blivit standard som digital kanal för sådan typ av kommunikation främst för att den erbjuder hög kostnadseffektivitet och goda möjligheter att skapa attraktivt innehåll anpassat efter kund. Den här uppsatsen har som syfte att identifiera vilka effekter individanpassad kommunikation genom e-post kan leda till inom lojalitetsprogram, samt om företag bör investera i individanpassad e-post kommunikation. Metoden bestod av två kvantitativa fallstudier i form av analys av elva individanpassade nyhetsbrev och ett aktiveringsbrev av ett företag verksam inom bränsle och närbutik. En serie kvalitativa intervjuer hölls också med individer verksamma inom individanpassad kommunikation. Resultaten visar att lojalitetsmedlemmarna i hög grad accepterar kommunikationen och nås av innehållet. De individanpassade nyhetsbreven visade inga tydliga positiva effekter inom försäljning, butiksbesök eller merförsäljning. Aktiveringsmailet, som var en del av aktiveringsfasen i kundlivscykeln visade på mer lovande resultat genom att leda till fler butiksbesök och ledde till en positiv merförsäljning. Ytterligare effekter inom byteskostnad och varumärkesmedvetenhet identifierades även, såvida innehållet når kunderna och uppfattas som relevant. Om inte riskerar innehållet att stöta bort kunderna eftersom det idag förväntas att digital marknadsföring är individanpassad. Sammanfattningsvis så rättfärdigar de identifierade effekterna investering i individanpassad kommunikation, men man bör vara medveten om vilka effekterna är.

The use of technology, such as electronic mail and the Internet, is becoming the norm in many workplaces. This is especially true in academic workplaces. The present study examined several issues related to electronic mail use and job satisfaction for employees within a higher education workplace. Results of the study found that administrative level employees both sent and received more email than non-administrative level staff. Job satisfaction was not found to be related to the amount of email sent or received. No difference in job satisfaction was found between employees at the main campus versus regional locations, nor was there a difference in job satisfaction between those employees who were supervised primarily via email and those who had in-person supervision. Results of this study help to clarify the role electronic mail plays in the workplace behavior and attitudes of higher education employees. This study also updates older research that found lower levels of job satisfaction in employees receiving e-supervision. The present study found no such differences, perhaps indicating a change in how employees experience e-supervision. Future researchers are urged to continue study examining how electronic technologies influence workplace attitudes and behaviors. While this study focused on email usage, other studies could examine Internet usage or focus on the integration of new technologies into the academic workplace.

Hacking information systems is continuously on the increase. Social engineering attacks is performed by manipulating the weakest link in the security chain; people. Consequently, this type of attack has gained a higher rate of success than a technical attack. Based in Expert Systems, this study proposes a proactive and integrated Intelligent Social Engineering Security Model to mitigate the human risk and reduce the impact of social engineering attacks. Many computer users do not have enough security knowledge to be able to select a strong password for their authentication. The author has attempted to implement a novel quantitative approach to achieve strong passwords. A new fuzzy logic tool is being developed to evaluate password strength and measures the password strength based on dictionary attack, time crack and shoulder surfing attack (social engineering). A comparative study of existing tools used by major companies such as Microsoft, Google, CertainKey, Yahoo and Facebook are used to validate the proposed model and tool. A comprehensive literature survey and analytical study performed on phishing emails representing social engineering attacks that are directly related to financial fraud are presented and compared with other security threats. This research proposes a novel approach that successfully addresses social engineering attacks. Another intelligent tool is developed to discover phishing messages and provide educational feedback to the user focusing on the visible part of the incoming emails, considering the email’s source code and providing an in-line awareness security feedback.

Email communication has become an indispensable aspect of modern life, enabling rapid and efficient information exchange for individuals and organizations worldwide. However, the rise of phishing attacks poses a significant threat to the security and privacy of email users, with attackers continuously refining their techniques to exploit unsuspecting victims. This systematic literature review (SLR) aims to examine the challenges faced in email phishing detection for both private and organizational users, highlighting the unique obstacles and requirements for each user group. By analyzing relevant and current research from the past three years, this study seeks to identify the key challenges in email phishing detection, including the evolving tactics used by attackers, the limitations of current detection methods, and the hurdles in user education and awareness. Furthermore, it investigates the differential impact of these challenges on private and organizational users, with a focus on the potential differences. The comparative analysis offers valuable insights into the distinct challenges private and organizational users face in their efforts to defend against email phishing attacks. Understanding these differences is crucial for developing targeted, effective solutions that can enhance the overall resilience and security of email communication systems. Ultimately, this SLR serves as a foundation for future research and development in the field of phishing detection, fostering a safer online environment for all users.