"Making Infrastructure Visible: a Case Study of Home Networking"
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MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE VISIBLE: A CASE STUDY OF HOME NETWORKING A Thesis Presented to The Academic Faculty by Marshini Chetty In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology August 2011 MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE VISIBLE: A CASE STUDY OF HOME NETWORKING Approved by: Professor Rebecca E. Grinter, Advisor Professor W.Keith Edwards College of Computing College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Professor Gregory Abowd Professor Tom Rodden College of Computing School of Computer Science and IT Georgia Institute of Technology University of Nottingham Professor Beth Mynatt Dr. A.J.B. Brush College of Computing VIBE Research Group Georgia Institute of Technology Microsoft Research, Redmond Date Approved: 19 April 2011 To my family, for their utmost love and support iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My journey through this Ph.D. has been a whirlwind of sights, sounds, and emotions. Throughout the process, I was fortunate to have the unwavering support of my loved ones and to meet many wonderful people who made the years of apprenticeship make me feel more alive than I ever imagined possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my family without whose caring words and constant reassurance I would have never made it past the lows, and whose praise and exaltation at my successes kept me going through the highs. To my loving husband, Nick Feamster, thank you for completing me. Aside from your love, I thank you for your mentorship, for inspiring me with your own successes, for your never- ending supply of energy and for your constant positivity. To my beloved mother, Segeree Chetty, I hope this makes you proud. To my sister, Unita Chetty, her loving husband Kuben Naidu and my two lights of joy, my niece Riya Naidu and my nephew Keeran Naidu, thank you for pushing me to be the best I can be. To my sisters Vanashree Chetty and Rulisha Chetty, thank you for constantly instant messaging me and helping me adjust to being so far away from my birth place. To my brother, Rudashan Chetty, thank you for moving to the U.S. and bringing a piece of family closer to me. Second, no Ph.D. journey is complete without a great mentor steering the ship away from glaciers and towards safe land. To my advisor, Beki Grinter, thank you for teaching me the ins and outs of the research process, academic and industry life and providing support and mentorship whenever I have needed it. I am sure that someone else will take up the mantle of sending you the most emails per week, and I look forward to being your colleague as I moved forward in my career. iv Third, how can a ship sail without crew members? I could not be more delighted to belong to an outstanding cadre of students at Georgia Tech and elsewhere, who have tirelessly supported and propped one another up from day one, through the good times and the bad. Thank you to my wonderful lab mates and pseudo-labmate, for reading all those paper drafts, commenting on talks and also being true friends: Ja- Young Sung, Andrea Grimes, Susan Wyche and Erika Poole. Thanks too to the two unofficial labmates who kept me laughing: Edward Clarkson and Jason Day. To my fellow students who came to practice talks, did paper draft swaps and provided their support and feedback whenever I needed it: Tamara Clegg, Eugene Medynskiy, Kurt Luther, Svetlana Yarosh, Sarita Yardi, Brian Landry, Christina Gartner and Brian Dorn. To those who were more senior than me, thank you for being excellent role models: Amy Voida, Andrea Forte, Gillian Hayes and Julie Kientz. To friends who made graduate student life more fun: Chris Wojtan, Ellie Harmon, Andrew Miller, Fatima Bourjarwah and Anna Mansour. To my remote Ph.D. support pal who was always there to listen to the ups and downs of dissertating: Ilda Ladeira. Fourth, a Ph.D. is a good excuse to have the privilege of interacting with really talented individuals about your own research. Thanks to my committee members for their valuable feedback and insights: Keith Edwards for his advice on home network- ing, Gregory Abowd for pushing me to be better, Beth Mynatt who is wise beyond her years, Tom Rodden for his feedback in a delightful Scottish accent, and A.J. Brush, a great friend and mentor. Fifth, thanks too to those who helped me with the studies I discuss within this document. Thank you to all the participants in my studies for your patience, your good graces and your feedback on the many aspects of home networking I find so interesting. Thanks too to the undergraduate and masters students who helped make this research possible: David Tran, Bethany Sumner, Ugochi Ofoha, David Haslem and Andrew Baird. I also thank Brian Meyers and Paul Johns, both of Microsoft v Research in Redmond for never tiring of my requests to alter PersonalVibe. Finally, I have enjoyed the generous support of Intel, Google, GVU center, Mi- crosoft Research and the National Research Foundation to help make my research ideas reality and for that I am grateful. This has been one of the most trying and enjoyable experiences in life and I look forward to continuing an upward research trajectory. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................... iv LIST OF TABLES ............................... x LIST OF FIGURES .............................. xi SUMMARY .................................... xii I INTRODUCTION ............................. 1 1.1 Purpose of Research and Thesis Statement..............6 1.2 Research Questions and Approach...................6 1.3 Beyond the Scope of This Dissertation.................9 1.4 Overview of Dissertation........................ 11 II RELATED WORK ............................. 13 2.1 Infrastructure and Visibility...................... 14 2.2 Home Networks Case Study....................... 15 2.2.1 Evolving Domestic Networks.................. 16 2.2.2 Home Networks as Infrastructure................ 18 2.2.3 Network Speeds and Visibility................. 21 2.2.4 Existing Network Tools..................... 23 2.3 Chapter Summary............................ 27 III MAKING CONNECTIONS: CONCEPTIONS OF THE HOME NETWORK AND THE DIGITAL FOOTPRINT .......... 29 3.1 Study Methods.............................. 29 3.2 Participants............................... 30 3.3 Findings................................. 33 3.3.1 Stages of Home Networking................... 33 3.3.2 Invisibility Issues........................ 34 3.3.3 Computing Routines...................... 41 vii 3.4 Chapter Summary............................ 51 IV COMPUTING ROUTINES AND RESOURCES BEHIND THE DIGITAL FOOTPRINT ......................... 55 4.1 Study Method.............................. 55 4.2 Participants............................... 57 4.3 An Obscured Digital Footprint: Invisibility of Routines and Resources 59 4.3.1 Computing Routines around Resources: Power Settings, Tech- nical Knowledge and Agency.................. 61 4.3.2 Invisibility of Resources Used by Computing Routines.... 63 4.4 Chapter Summary............................ 68 V SURFACING THE HOME'S DIGITAL FOOTPRINT WITH KER- MIT ...................................... 70 5.1 Methods................................. 70 5.2 Kermit.................................. 71 5.2.1 Design Goals........................... 71 5.2.2 Surfacing Aspects of the Digital Footprint around Computing Routines and Resources..................... 72 5.3 Deployment Overview.......................... 78 5.3.1 Pilot study............................ 78 5.3.2 Participants........................... 79 5.3.3 Methods............................. 81 5.3.4 Data Measures and Analysis Overview............. 82 5.4 Results.................................. 84 5.4.1 Awareness of Broadband Issues................. 84 5.4.2 Kermit as a Broadband Management Tool.......... 90 5.4.3 Kermit as Consumer Watchdog................. 98 5.5 Summary of Findings.......................... 100 5.6 Chapter Summary............................ 100 VI RECONSIDERING NETWORKED INFRASTRUCTURE ... 102 6.1 Designing Broadband Tools for the Home............... 102 viii 6.2 Towards Inspectable Infrastructure................... 105 6.2.1 Defining Inspectability..................... 106 6.2.2 Privacy, Surveillance and Inspectability............ 118 6.3 Chapter Summary............................ 124 VII REFLECTIONS ON MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE VISIBLE 126 7.1 Enumerating User Needs and Desires................. 127 7.2 Determining Actions and Controls................... 128 7.3 Eliciting Conceptual Models...................... 129 7.4 Applying Visualization Techniques................... 131 7.5 Implications for Public Policy...................... 133 7.6 Chapter Summary............................ 134 VIIICONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK .............. 135 8.1 Summary of Contributions and Conclusions.............. 135 8.2 Architecting Inspectable Home Network Infrastructure........ 138 8.2.1 Considerations for Network-Mediated Sensing......... 139 8.2.2 Limitations and Concluding Remarks............. 143 8.3 Chapter Summary............................ 144 APPENDIX A | SELECTED KERMIT FIELD TRIAL STUDY INSTRUMENTS .............................. 145 REFERENCES .................................. 180 ix LIST OF TABLES 1 Summary of Thesis Studies........................8 2 Participant Demographics Spring 2006 Study.............. 31 3 Participant Demographics Spring 2007 Study.............. 32 4 Participant Demographics Summer 2008 Study............. 58 5 Participant