About Me
I work on making technology more private and secure by studying and simplifying people's decisions. My research lies at the intersection of (cyber)security & privacy with human-computer interaction & social computing.
See my website, below, for more information!
See my website, below, for more information!
Education
Ph.D.; University of California-Berkeley; Computer Science; 2021
B.S.; Brown University; Computer Science & Economics; 2013
Website
2026 Fall Courses
IS 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES
IT 488 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
CS 488 - INDEPENDENT STUDY IN CS
CS 351 - INTRODUCTION TO CYBERSECURITY
CS 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I
IS 491 - SENIOR PROJECT - IS
CS 351 - INTRODUCTION TO CYBERSECURITY - HONORS
CS 489 - COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH PROJ
IS 701B - MASTER'S THESIS
IS 726 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II
IS 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH
CS 700B - MASTER'S PROJECT
CS 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES
IS 700B - MASTER'S PROJECT
IS 776 - IS RESEARCH STUDY
IS 489 - INFO UNDERGRAD THESIS RESEARCH
CS 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH
IS 488 - INDEPENDENT STUDY IN INFO
CS 701B - MASTER'S THESIS
CS 726 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II
IS 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I
Past Courses
CS 485: ST: USABLE SECURITY AND PRIVACY
CS 698: ST: HUMAN FACTORS IN SECURITY & PRIVACY
CS 698: ST: HUMAN FACTORS IN SECURITY AND PRIVACY
IS 393: USABLE SECURITY AND PRIVACY
IS 485: ST: USABLE SECURITY AND PRIVACY
IS 698: ST: HUMAN FACTORS IN SECURITY & PRIVACY
IS 698: ST: HUMAN FACTORS IN SECURITY AND PRIVACY
Research Interests
Human-centered security and privacy
Journal Article
Abreu, Giselle Mendon\c ca, Alexandra Pan, Alison E. Post, Nathan Malkin, Karen Trapenberg Frick. "How Do Cyber-Risks Vary Across Smart City Technologies?." Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 0, no. 0, pp. 1--21.
Giselle Mendonça Abreu, Alexandra Pan, Alison E. Post, Nathan Malkin, Karen Trapenberg Frick. 2025. "How do Cyber-Risks Vary Across Smart City Technologies?." Journal of Urban Technology, pp. 1-21.
Nathan Malkin. 2023. "Contextual Integrity, Explained: A More Usable Privacy Definition." IEEE Security \& Privacy, pp. 2--9.
Nathan Malkin. 2023. "Contextual Integrity, Explained: A More Usable Privacy Definition." IEEE Security & Privacy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 58-65.
Nathan Malkin, David Wagner, Serge Egelman. 2022. "Can Humans Detect Malicious Always-Listening Assistants? A Framework for Crowdsourcing Test Drives." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 6, no. CSCW2, pp. 1-28.
Gary Liu, Nathan Malkin. 2022. "Effects of Privacy Permissions on User Choices in Voice Assistant App Stores." Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, vol. 2022, no. 4, pp. 421-439.
Eyal Peer, Serge Egelman, Marian Harbach, Nathan Malkin, Arunesh Mathur, Alisa Frik. 2020. "Nudge me right: Personalizing online security nudges to people's decision-making styles." Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 109, pp. 106347.
Eyal Pe'er, Serge Egelman, Marian Harbach, Nathan Malkin, Arunesh Mathur, Alisa Frik. 2019. "Nudge Me Right: Personalizing Online Nudges to People's Decision-Making Styles." SSRN Electronic Journal.
Madiha Tabassum, Tomasz Kosiński, Alisa Frik, Nathan Malkin, Primal Wijesekera, Serge Egelman, Heather Richter Lipford. 2019. "Investigating Users' Preferences and Expectations for Always-Listening Voice Assistants." Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 1-23.
Nathan Malkin, Joe Deatrick, Allen Tong, Primal Wijesekera, Serge Egelman, David Wagner. 2019. "Privacy Attitudes of Smart Speaker Users." Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, vol. 2019, no. 4, pp. 250-271.
Linda Lee, David Fifield, Nathan Malkin, Ganesh Iyer, Serge Egelman, David Wagner. 2017. "A Usability Evaluation of Tor Launcher." Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, vol. 2017, no. 3, pp. 90-109.
Nathan Malkin, Marian Harbach, Alexander De Luca, Serge Egelman. 2017. "The Anatomy of Smartphone Unlocking: Why and How Android Users around the World Lock Their Phones." GetMobile: Mobile Comp. and Comm., vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 42--46.
Nathan Malkin, Marian Harbach, Alexander De Luca, Serge Egelman. 2017. "THE ANATOMY OF SMARTPHONE UNLOCKING." GetMobile: Mobile Computing and Communications, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 42-46.
Conference Proceeding
"Do You See If I See? Investigating Reciprocity in Interpersonal Access-Control Settings (in the U.S.)"
2025.
2025.
"Privacy Solution or Menace? Investigating Perceptions of Radio-Frequency Sensing"
2025.
2025.
""That's something that as a senior person you have to consider now": Unpacking Older Adults' Preferences for End-of-Life Data Planning"
ACM, July (3rd Quarter/Summer), 2025.
ACM, July (3rd Quarter/Summer), 2025.
"Characterizing Everyday Misuse of Smart Home Devices"
IEEE, May, 2023.
IEEE, May, 2023.
"Is Cryptographic Deniability Sufficient? Non-Expert Perceptions of Deniability in Secure Messaging"
IEEE, May, 2023.
IEEE, May, 2023.
"Is Cryptographic Deniability Sufficientƒ Non-Expert Perceptions of Deniability in Secure Messaging"
IEEE, May, 2023.
IEEE, May, 2023.
"Optimistic Access Control for the Smart Home"
IEEE, May, 2023.
IEEE, May, 2023.
"Incidental Incremental In-Band Fingerprint Verification: a Novel Authentication Ceremony for End-to-End Encrypted Messaging"
ACM, October (4th Quarter/Autumn), 2022.
ACM, October (4th Quarter/Autumn), 2022.
"Runtime Permissions for Privacy in Proactive Intelligent Assistants"
USENIX Association, August, 2022.
USENIX Association, August, 2022.
"SoK: A Framework for Unifying At-Risk User Research"
IEEE, May, 2022.
IEEE, May, 2022.
"A Promise Is A Promise: The Effect of Commitment Devices on Computer Security Intentions"
ACM, 2019.
ACM, 2019.
"Privacy controls for always-listening devices"
ACM, September, 2019.
ACM, September, 2019.
"Keepers of the Machines: Examining How System Administrators Manage Software Updates for Multiple Machines"
USENIX Association, August, 2019.
USENIX Association, August, 2019.
"A Promise Is A Promise"
ACM, May, 2019.
ACM, May, 2019.
""What Can't Data Be Used For?": Privacy Expectations about Smart TVs in the U.S."
Internet Society, 2018.
Internet Society, 2018.
"Better Late(r) than Never: Increasing Cyber-Security Compliance by Reducing Present Bias"
2018.
2018.
"Quantifying Users' Beliefs about Software Updates"
Internet Society, 2018.
Internet Society, 2018.
"An Experience Sampling Study of User Reactions to Browser Warnings in the Field"
ACM, April (2nd Quarter/Spring), 2018.
ACM, April (2nd Quarter/Spring), 2018.
"Personalized Security Messaging: Nudges for Compliance with Browser Warnings"
Internet Society, 2017.
Internet Society, 2017.
"Personalized Security Messaging: Nudges for Compliance with Browser Warnings"
Internet Society, 2017.
Internet Society, 2017.
"Keep on Lockin' in the Free World: A Multi-National Comparison of Smartphone Locking"
Association for Computing Machinery, 2016.
Association for Computing Machinery, 2016.
"Keep on Lockin' in the Free World"
ACM, May, 2016.
ACM, May, 2016.
Conference Paper
"Understanding How People Share Passwords"
Twentieth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024), August, 2024.
Twentieth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024), August, 2024.
"Write, Read, or Fix? Exploring Alternative Methods for Secure Development Studies"
Twentieth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024), August, 2024.
Twentieth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2024), August, 2024.
Technical Report
"The Cybersecurity Risks of Smart City Technologies: What Do The Experts Think?"
February, 2021.
February, 2021.