Taking the Middle Path: Learning About Security Through Online Social Interaction

Abstract

As software-intensive digital systems become an integral part of modern life, ensuring that these systems are developed to satisfy security and privacy requirements is an increasingly important societal concern. Integrating security into software development involves more than learning security principles or applying techniques. Security in practice is shaped through experience. It can be integrated into software development by following a middle path, through which developers draw together formal knowledge and software development techniques. Social interactions facilitate this process. This article recommends four strategies developers can use to maximise security in practice using online communities like Stack Overflow, including approaching security from within specific tasks, critically assessing content in posts, actively participating, and bringing online information into real-world situations.

Security Responses in Software Development

“…Though knowledgeable and aware about security, they lacked specialism. However, observational data at both sites included evidence that knowledge and engagement were supported and fostered informally among peers, suggesting that security expertise in software development is intertwined with and embedded within informal networks [73], a finding reported in [33], and also described in the context of situated learning [67] .…”

“…Another concern is the methods developers use to fill in gaps of understanding. One way developers augment their own experience is through the use of online sources [33]. App developers report that they gain secure coding skills using internet sites and podcasts [72].…”

“…4. This figure shows an example of an informal conversation observed at Site A. Annotations highlight security knowledge [63], features of security in interactions [33] and work factors [24]. For other details about this episode, see episode 1 in Appendix A.2)…”

Design and Analysis of Immersive Interaction Scenarios for Social Products

“…In the process of social interaction, interest is used as a medium to attract users and generate content and improve the social ecology of software [19,20]. e first four parts of "discovery" need to go to the next level for finding content, and the waterfall flow is used to directly display the content of interest for the latter three, but the social connections in this sector are weak.…”