Publications

Papers since joining ZHAW

• Attacking LLMs with Low-Resource Languages: A Multilingual Evaluation of Small Open-Weight Models. Lampart, Caroline; Monteiro Raphaël; Balebako, Rebecca. (RAISE) Workshop on Real-world AI Security and Engineering for Cybersecurity Systems 2026 September 14-18, 2026 in Rome, Italy
• Pragmatism: The Missing Piece in Privacy Enhancing Technologies Balebako, Rebecca. Position Paper, Communications of the ACM (preprint)
• The State of Human (Un) Centered AI Security Research Willi, Leandra; Balebako, Rebecca. HATS Workshop at the Symposuim for Usable Privacy and Security, August 23-26, 2026 Hamburg Germany
• How to Compare the Security of Code Written by Humans to LLM-generated Code Egli, Jasmine; Balebako, Rebecca. Joint Proceedings of the STAF 2026 Workshop, LLM4SE Rennes, France, June 29-July 3, 2026.
  Full version with appendices
  15 minute video

Other Papers

• Turtles, Locks, and Bathrooms: Understanding Mental Models of Privacy Through Illustration. Oates M, Ahmadullah Y, Marsh A, Swoopes C, Zhang S, Balebako R, Cranor LF. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. 2018 Oct 1;2018(4):5-32.
• Designing effective privacy notices and controls. Schaub, Florian, Rebecca Balebako, and Lorrie Faith Cranor. IEEE Internet Computing (2017).
• The Impact of Timing on the Salience of Smartphone App Privacy Notices Balebako, R., Schaub, F., Adjerid, I., Acquisti, A., Cranor, L. 5th Annual ACM CCS Workshop on Security and Privacy in Smartphones and Mobile Devices (SPSM), 2015, ACM.
• A Design Space for Effective Privacy Notices Schaub, F., Balebako, R., Durity A., and Cranor L. In Proceedings of the 2015 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (Winner, Future of Privacy Forum's Privacy Papers for Policy Makers).
• Variations in Tracking in Relation to Geographic Location Fruchter, N., Miao, H., Stevenson, S, Balebako, R. IEEE Security & Privacy Workshop on Web 2.0 for Security and Privacy, 2015.
• Is Notice Enough: Mitigating the Risks of Smartphone Data Sharing Balebako, R., C. Bravo-Lillo, Cranor, L. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society. Volume 11, Issue 2, Summer 2015.
• The Privacy and Security Behaviors of Smartphone App Developers Balebako, R., Marsh, A., Lin, J., Hong, J., Cranor, L. NDSS Workshop 2014 Usable Security Experiments (USEC).
• Is Your Inseam a Biometric? A Case Study on the Role of Usability Studies in Developing Public Policy Balebako, R., Shay, R., Cranor, L. In NDSS Workshop 2014 Usable Security Experiments (USEC). Full version with appendices
• Is it the typeset or the type of statistics? Disfluent font does not reduce self-disclosure Balebako, R., Peer, E., Brandimarte, L., Cranor, L., Acquisti, A. In Proceedings of the 2013 Learning from Authoritative Security Experiment Results (LASER) Workshop. Video of Presentation
• Little Brothers Watching You: Raising Awareness of Data Leaks on Smartphones Balebako, R., Jung, J., Lu, W., Cranor, L., Nguyen, C. In Proceedings of the 2013 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.
• What Matters to Users? Factors that Affect Users' Willingness to Share Information with Online Advertisers Leon, P., Ur, B., Wang, Y., Sleeper, M., Balebako, R., Shay, R., Bauer, L., Christodorescu, M., Cranor, L. In Proceedings of the 2013 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.
• The post that wasn't: Exploring self-censorship on Facebook. Sleeper, M., Balebako, R., Das, S., McConahy, A., Wiese, J., and Cranor, L. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Work, p793-802, 2013 ACM.
• Measuring the Effectiveness of Privacy Tools for Limiting Behavioral Advertising Balebako, R., Leon, P., Shay, R., Ur, B., Wang, W., and Cranor, L. In Web 2.0 for Security and Privacy Workshop (2012).
• Why Johnny Can't Opt Out: A usability evaluation of tools to limit online behavioral advertising Leon, P., Ur, B., Balebako, R., Cranor, L., Shay, R., Wang, Y. In Proceedings of CHI 2012. Full version
• Masters Thesis: Using Distributed Computing to solve the 0-1 Knapsack Problem (PDF).

Book Chapters

• The Ethical and Privacy Issues in Social-Behavioral Research. Davis, P.K., O'Mahony, A., Pfautz, J., Balebako, R., and Osoba, O. (2019). In Social-Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems (eds P.K. Davis, A. O'Mahony and J. Pfautz).
• The Latent Potential of Privacy Technologies: How Our Future Will Be Shaped by Today's Privacy Decisions. William Welser IV, Rebecca Balebako, Cameron Colquhoun, Osonde Osoba. Strategic Latency Red, White, and Blue: Managing the National and International Security Consequences of Disruptive Technologies. LLNL, Chapter 11, 2018.
• The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy Evan Selinger, Jules Polonetsky, Omer Tene. 2018 (co-wrote Chapter 21 - A Design Space for Effective Privacy Notices).

Position Papers and WIP

• Nudging Users Towards Privacy on Mobile Devices. Balebako, R., Leon, P., Almuhimedi, H., Kelley, P., Mugan, J., Acquisti, A., Cranor, L., and Sadeh, N. In Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Workshop on Persuasion, Nudge, Influence, and Coercion on Mobile Devices, p23-26, CHI 2011.
• Measuring the Contribution of Novices in Penetration Testing Rebecca Balebako, Akhil Shah, Kenneth Kuhn, Sherban Drulea, Christopher Skeels, Lara Schmidt (RAND Corporation).