User experiences with sharing and access control

The sharing of network-based information is a key component of recreational and professional interaction, from email attachments to P2P networks. However, people need to accommodate technical challenges in successful and secure content sharing. In particular, people have to manage access control policies that are both social and technical: deciding what to share and who to share it with, and how to technically effect their decisions. In this paper, we focus on the usability of access control: how people manage file sharing among various groups, organizations, and tasks. We present survey and interview data regarding content sharing and content protection, and discuss the implications for the design of networked collaboration tools.