Abstract
Socio-technical Synthesis: From Personalized Travel to Systemic Breach
My STS research paper and technical work are connected through the idea of human and technology interaction. I will explore how different interactions can shape completely opposite results. The technical project, Charlottesville Travel Planner, seeks to optimize the visitor experience through a web-based service that connects human users and technology. In contrast, my STS research applies Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to understand cybersecurity intrusions, demonstrating how human and non-human actors interact to produce vulnerabilities. By applying ANT to the two projects, I uncover the distributed agency in technological systems. The two projects highlight the intricacy of socio-technical networks and the necessity for bundling different actors in order to generate robust and sustainable technological outcomes.
My technical project examines the interaction between human actors (potential visitors) and non-human actors (our application). Our team initiated the project from scratch and the building process took four phases: eliciting requirements, designing the platform, implementing functionalities, and conducting tests. We implemented using the Django framework and a RESTful API for (1) a platform where users can post their traveling experiences and reviews, and (2) a recommendation system to generate personalized itineraries based on individual user preference. The goal of this project is to bridge the gap between generic travel and the highly personalized itinerary schedule. The success of this system relies not only on technical design but also on user participation, which underscores the importance of the interplay between human and non-human actors.
My STS research paper also examines a network but with an adverse result. I employ ANT to analyze the 2017 Equifax data breach, arguing the breach is a tripartite interaction of profit-maximizing corporate policies, software vulnerabilities, and regulatory shortcomings. Actor-network theory is used to demonstrate both human and non-human actors engaged together to turn the security incident into a systemic failure. My claim is that, instead of viewing the breach as the result of a single actor’s failure, responsibility is distributed across a network of human and non-human actors. The goal of my research paper is to provide a system-level analysis as a reminder for future cyber security preparation and response to cyber-attacks.
Developing both projects provided useful insight into the relationship between technical design and wider socio-technical issues. Based on our group’s experience, the challenge of implementing recommendation systems illustrates that technology is not standalone, but relies heavily on user interaction, data availability, and system compatibility. Similarly, my STS research highlighted how technical vulnerabilities are the outcome of interactions among human and non-human actors rather than isolated flaws. Applying ANT to both projects allowed me to value the importance of considering distributed agencies in the technological system. In the future path of engineering, I will analyze problems from multiple perspectives, taking into account the interactions between different actors during the design process. Overall, my work on both projects has given me a greater appreciation for the complexity of technological networks and the inherent necessity of interdisciplinary solutions in engineering and cybersecurity.
