Hi, 

> I think unlinkability is stronger than anonymity( " An attacker might get to 
> know
>   information on linkability of various messages while not necessarily
>   reducing anonymity of the particular subject.  ") 
> so anonymity is the basic requirement for privacy protection? 

I think it is more complicated than that. 

Some thoughts on the subject: 

- I believe Iinkability eventually leads to a degradation of anonymity. In 
fact, if actions / messages / transactions are linkable, I would say there is 
no anonymity, but rather "pseudonymity" (one can give a name or number to the 
set of transactions which acts as a pseudonym for the user). 

- I do not think one can talk of a "basic requirement" for privacy protection 
in general. Each case must be studied individually in order to see: how do we 
define a privacy breach in the context of the application, what is the threat 
model, how do the requirements translate to technical properties, etc. 

- I also think that one can distinguish (at least) two basic mechanisms for 
privacy protection (which can also be combined):

1) anonymity: the actions are known (eg, which web page is downloaded) and the 
identity is concealed. 

2) PIR/OT approach: the identity is known but the action is concealed (eg, I 
know you are accessing a record in my database, but I do not know which record 
it is). 


Best,
Claudia



On 10 Feb 2012, at 02:44:20, [email protected] wrote:

> 
> Hannes Tschofenig <[email protected]> 写于 2012-02-09 16:53:01:
> 
> 
> > Anyway, I believe that anonymity isn't the right term for that 
> > document when the privacy threat is focused on the HIP responder 
> > getting to know the host identities. The HIP responder receives the 
> > HITs in the exchange.
> > 
> > The only form of protection the document seems to provide is the 
> > usage of pseudonyms. A HI itself is already a pseudonym (based on 
> > the definition of a pseudonym in the document) and the main question
> > here is about linkability and about the lifetime of these 
> > pseudonyms. We could, for example, regularly re-compute a new HI and
> > use it. This may be computationally more expensive but would provide
> > some level of protection. The problem only shows up in relationship 
> > to other usages of the HI, for example, for access control. In the 
> > draft this blinded HIT is used that is essentially derived from the 
> > original HiT (and consequently from the HI). An attacker may not 
> > able to learn the original HIT (or HI) but may still be able to make
> > the individual protocol runs linkable to each other. Note that this 
> > mechanism has often been provided by other protocols as well (see 
> > all the network access authentication protocols). 
> 
> I think unlinkability is stronger than anonymity( " An attacker might get to 
> know
>   information on linkability of various messages while not necessarily
>   reducing anonymity of the particular subject.  ") 
> so anonymity is the basic requirement for privacy protection? 
> 
> > 
> > Btw, where did you got this anonymity definition from that you cite 
> > below? I don't think it is particularly good. Imagine that you have 
> > a VoIP service offering that only has two users, you and me. If an 
> > adversary eavesdrops on the communication it may not find out 
> > whether it is you or me (without using further information) but 
> > that's a pretty bad privacy protection. Instead, it would be much 
> > better if the anonymity set is much larger. 
> 
> I got the definition of anonymity in  P10 [in Foundations of Group 
> Signatures: The Case of Dynamic Groups 
> http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/~mihir/papers/dgs.html] 
> 
> > Ciao
> > Hannes
> > 
> > PS: It may turn out to be useful to add another term to the document
> > to express the common property of hiding the identity of the 
> > initiator to eavesdroppers, such as "initiator identity confidentiality". 
> 
> or as a special case of anonymity? 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> ietf-privacy mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy


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Prof. Dr. Ir. Claudia Diaz

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven                       
Dept. Electrical Engineering-ESAT / COSIC
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 18 14    fax: +32 16 32 19 69

email: claudia.diaz (at) esat.kuleuven.be
web: http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~cdiaz/
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