How users use access control

Abstract

Existing technologies for file sharing differ widely in the granularity of control they give users over who can access their data; achieving finer-grained control generally requires more user effort. We would like to understand what level of control users need over their data, by examining what sorts of policies users actually apply to their shared data in practice. We used automated data mining techniques to examine the real-world use of access control features present in standard document sharing systems in a corporate environment over a long (> 10 year) time span.