On the limits of provable anonymity

Nethanel Gelernter, Amir Herzberg

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study provably secure anonymity. We begin with rigorous definition of anonymity against wide range of computationally bounded attackers, including eavesdroppers, malicious peers, malicious destinations, and their combinations. Following [hevia2008indistinguishability], our definition is generic, and captures different notions of anonymity (e.g., unobservability and sender anonymity). We then study the feasibility of ultimate anonymity: the strongest-possible anonymity requirements and adversaries. We show there is a protocol satisfying this requirement, but with absurd (although polynomial) inefficiency and overhead. We show that such inefficiency and overhead are unavoidable for 'ultimate anonymity'. We then present a slightly-relaxed requirement and present feasible protocols for it.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationWPES 2013 - Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, Co-located with CCS 2013
Pages225-235
Number of pages11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event1st ACM Workshop on Language Support for Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, PETShop 2013 - Co-located with the 20th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2013 - Berlin, Germany
Duration: 4 Nov 20134 Nov 2013

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
ISSN (Print)1543-7221

Conference

Conference1st ACM Workshop on Language Support for Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, PETShop 2013 - Co-located with the 20th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2013
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBerlin
Period4/11/134/11/13

Keywords

  • anonymity
  • anonymous communication
  • metrics
  • theory
  • unlinkability
  • unobservability

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