Michael Hitchens

Research Interests:  Access Control, network security, cyber security, trust and privacy in computer security, Video Games, computer games, player-avatar relationship, role-playing games.

Videogames are the new media of the 21^st century, ranging from simple but enthralling games that can be played a few minutes at time on hand-held devices to epic adventures in virtual worlds that can take hundreds of hours to play.  Of particular interest to me is the relationship between players and their representations in virtual worlds, player experience and the study of roleplaying games.  Roleplaying games present a fascinating example of games, being large in scale, inviting players to identify deeply with their characters and challenging our notions of what a game is and how games and stories relate.

Within the broad area of Computer Security most of my work concentrates on authorisation/access control, trust and network security protocols. Authorisation/access control involves the policies settings that specify what a user or other entity is able to do within a system and the mechanisms that enforce these settings. Trust examines issues of how confident one entity should be in whether another will carry out an action. Network security protocols provide the structure for communication between entities.

Education and Work Experience:  Dr. Hitchens is an associate professor in the Department of Computing at Macquarie University.  He received his PhD in Operating Systems from the University of Newcastle in 1991.  Before joining Macquarie he has worked at Western Sydney University (1991-1995,2000) and the University of Sydney (1996-1999).