I trust we will get a quick "hum" to the proposition that "truncating" the v4addr to a /25 does not, in a dhcp, or in a static address regime, offer a great deal of "privacy enhancement", given the effectiveness of profiling and the sparsity of "like browsing sequences" at any collection moment. I mention this because the P3P spec (section 5.3.6.2, "ipaddrs") argues (wrt /25 and endpoint identifiers) that: ... By collecting only a subset of the address information, the site visitor is given some measure of anonymity. It is certainly not the intent of this specification to claim that these "stripped" IP addresses or hostnames are impossible to associate with an individual user, but rather that it is significantly more difficult to do so. ... [Similarly, the P3P Spec allows "stripping" of a FQDN to be a data collecting site's "privacy enhancement", where "stripping" means dropping the leftmost label.] Endpoint identifiers (e.g., ipv4 addrs, leased or not) tend to identify natural persons, even if only for the lease period, and the Economist's author could have presented the data protection legal framework, or the P3P technical framework, without attempting a (bogus) case that endpoints and privacy are irreconcilable, or taking a wild swing at v6 addrs. I'd the impresion that Sean didn't include the para in which the author endorsed NATs as privacy enhancement technology (cannonical rant here). Cheers, Eric
Re: The Internet and the Law, the Economist, 13-19 January 2001
Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine Tue, 16 Jan 2001 16:17:04 -0800
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