Global
Supervision: Konstantin Fischer Start date: As soon as possible More details:Description
Consumer VPNs in the likes of NordVPN, ExpressVPN, PIA have seen a huge surge in (paying) user numbers over the past few years. One of the reasons might be aggressive and sometimes questionable marketing. Are end-users aware of what they are paying for?
The first aim of this thesis is to give an overview of:
- Recent publications on end-user adoption of Consumer VPNs.
- The actual security benefits of using Consumer VPNs, by constructing possible real world attack scenarios and accompanying threat models.
- The promises commercial Consumer VPN companies make and the threats they communicate to convert potential customers.
Based on this, the second aim is to develop and test a questionnaire for assessing user perceptions of Consumer VPNs.
Requirements
Caution: Testing a questionnaire involves qualitative research, i.e. talking to non-computer people and being nice to them.