Abstract

We examine the relationship between systems and their users from the knowledge discovery perspective. Recently knowledge discovery in databases has made important progress, but it may also bring some potential problems to database design, such as issues related to database security, because an unauthorised user may derive highly sensitive knowledge from unclassified data. In this paper we point out that there is a need for a comprehensive study on knowledge discovery in human-computer symbiosis. Borrowing terms from algorithm design and artificial intelligence literature, we propose a notion called database-user adversarial partnership. We point out that this notion is general enough to cover various knowledge discovery and security of issues related to databases and their users. Furthermore, we point out the notion of database-user adversarial partnership can be further generalised into system-user adversarial partnership. Opportunities provided by knowledge discovery techniques and potential social implications are also discussed