Developers Need Protection, Too: Perspectives and Research Challenges for Privacy in Social Coding Platforms

Publikationstyp
Conference Paper
Date Issued
2023-05
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Díaz Ferreyra, Nicolás  orcid-logo
Software Security E-22  
Imine, Abdessamad  
Vidoni, Melina  
Australian National University, School of Computing, Canberra, Australia
Scandariato, Riccardo  
Software Security E-22  
TORE-URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11420/42425
Citation
16th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE 2023)
Contribution to Conference
16th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2023
Publisher DOI
10.1109/CHASE58964.2023.00019
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85165207859
ISBN
9798350337341
Social Coding Platforms (SCPs) like GitHub have become central to modern software engineering thanks to their collaborative and version-control features. Like in mainstream Online Social Networks (OSNs) such as Facebook, users of SCPs are subjected to privacy attacks and threats given the high amounts of personal and project-related data available in their profiles and software repositories. However, unlike in OSNs, the privacy concerns and practices of SCP users have not been extensively explored nor documented in the current literature. In this work, we present the preliminary results of an online survey (N=105) addressing developers' concerns and perceptions about privacy threats steaming from SCPs. Our results suggest that, although users express concern about social and organisational privacy threats, they often feel safe sharing personal and project-related information on these platforms. Moreover, attacks targeting the inference of sensitive attributes are considered more likely than those seeking to re-identify source-code contributors. Based on these findings, we propose a set of recommendations for future investigations addressing privacy and identity management in SCPs.
Subjects
privacy concerns
privacy engineering
social coding platforms
usable security