Engage / Prizes / Norm Hardy Prize
Prize
Secure AI

Norm Hardy Prize

For Usable Security


Date

The Problem

Our society depends on the reliability and resilience of our infrastructure, which in turn depends on security. Unfortunately, our current software infrastructure is not only insecure, it is insecurable. No user interface can make an insecure system secure. We understand how to build systems whose foundations are vastly more secure, but we are likely to need new interaction designs so that people can use these secure systems securely.

The Prize

The Norm Hardy Prize is a $10,000 annual award for work that helps users make wise decisions. The Prize will recognize work that meets at least one of these criteria:

The long term goal of the Norm Hardy Prize is a set of design principles and tools that encourage developers to create interaction designs that make it easy for people to use secure systems securely.

Submissions

To be eligible for the $10k prize, please submit work which discusses at least one of these four criteria:

Submissions must include a description of the work and how it contributes to the stated goals of the Prize. They may include links to working prototypes that the judges can evaluate. Wire frames for new affordances will be accepted, but working prototypes are preferred. User studies that only evaluate existing systems are not eligible for the Prize. Work that proposes metrics for usable security must demonstrate that it can differentiate systems based on the ability of users to make good choices. Work on how users build mental models of the systems they use must demonstrate that these models can be translated into guidance for developers.

For questions about the prize, please reach out to: [email protected]

In what kind of architecture can the deputy use each permission only for the purpose it was given, without being led to use them for other purposes?

Norm Hardy

Winners

The 2024 winners of the Norm Hardy Prize were awarded for their work “Protect Me Tomorrow: Commitment Nudges to Remedy Compromised Passwords“ – in which they ran experiments showing that people are more likely to change their compromised passwords when given the option to delay and commit to doing it later.

Dr. Alisa Frik

Dr. Serge Egelman

Conor Gilsenan

Prof. Eyal Peer

Previous Winners

2023

  • Covid Watch

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