On the limits of provable anonymity

  • Authors:
  • Nethanel Gelernter;Amir Herzberg

  • Affiliations:
  • Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel;Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 12th ACM workshop on Workshop on privacy in the electronic society
  • Year:
  • 2013

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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.