Enhancing Privacy for Mobile Networks : Examples of Anonymity Solutions and Their Analysis

• Main Author: Andersson, Christer
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Karlstads universitet, Institutionen för informationsteknologi 2005
• Subjects: privacy; anonymity; pseudonymity; identity management; mobile Internet; location based services; mobile ad hoc networks; Computer Sciences; Datavetenskap (datalogi)
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-1560; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:91-7063-025-9

Internet and mobile communications have had a profound effect on today’s society. New services are constantly being deployed, in which an increasing amount of personal data is being processed in return for personally tailored services. Further, the use of electronic surveillance is increasing. There is the risk that honest citizens will have their privacy invaded for “the greater good”. We argue that it is of uttermost importance to retain the individuals’ control over their personal spheres. One approach for enhancing the users’ privacy is to deploy technical measures for safeguarding privacy, so-called Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs). This thesis examines a set of PETs for enabling anonymous communication, so-called anonymous overlay networks,which eliminate the processing of personal data altogether by allowing the users act anonymously when communicating in a networked environment. This thesis focuses mainly on mobile networks. These are of great interest because on the one hand they lay the groundwork for new innovative applications, but on the other hand they pose numerous novel challenges to privacy. This thesis describes the implementation and performance evaluation of mCrowds – an anonymous overlay network for mobile Internet that enables anonymous browsing. It also describes the ongoing investigation on how to design anonymous overlay networks in order to make them suitable for mobile ad hoc networks, a required building block for ambient intelligence.