Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Measuring Anonymity with Relative Entropy

  • Conference paper
Book cover Formal Aspects in Security and Trust (FAST 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 4691))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Anonymity is the property of maintaining secret the identity of users performing a certain action. Anonymity protocols often use random mechanisms which can be described probabilistically. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic process calculus to describe protocols for ensuring anonymity, and we use the notion of relative entropy from information theory to measure the degree of anonymity these protocols can guarantee. Furthermore, we prove that the operators in the probabilistic process calculus are non-expansive, with respect to this measuring method. We illustrate our approach by using the example of the Dining Cryptographers Problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Baier, C., Kwiatkowaska, M.Z.: Domain equations for probabilistic processes. Mathematical Structures in Computer Science 10(6), 665–717 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Berthold, O., Pfiztmann, A., Standtke, R.: The disavantages of free mix routes and how to overcome them. In: Federrath, H. (ed.) Designing Privacy Enhancing Technologies. LNCS, vol. 2009, pp. 30–45. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Bhargava, M., Palamidessi, C.: Probabilistic anonymity. In: Abadi, M., de Alfaro, L. (eds.) CONCUR 2005. LNCS, vol. 3653, pp. 171–185. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Chatzikokolakis, K., Palamidessi, C., Panangaden, P.: Anonymity protocols as noisy channels. In: Proc. 2nd Symposium on Trustworthy Global Computing. LNCS, Springer, Heidelberg, 2006 (to appear)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Chaum, D.: The dining cryptographers problem: Unconditional sender and recipient untraceability. Journal of Cryptology 1, 65–75 (1988)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Deng, Y., Palamidessi, C., Pang, J.: Weak probabilistic anonymity. In: Proc. 3rd Workshop on Security Issues in Concurrency, ENTCS, 2006 (to appear)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Desharnais, J., Jagadeesan, R., Gupta, V., Panangaden, P.: The metric analogue of weak bisimulation for probabilistic processes. In: Proc. 17th IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, pp. 413–422. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Desharnais, J., Jagadeesan, R., Gupta, V., Panangaden, P.: Metrics for labelled Markov processes. Theoretical Computer Science 318(3), 323–354 (2004)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Díaz, C., Seys, S., Claessens, J., Preneel, B.: Towards measuring anonymity. In: Dingledine, R., Syverson, P.F. (eds.) PET 2002. LNCS, vol. 2482, pp. 54–68. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Dingledine, R., Shmatikov, V., Syverson, P.F.: Synchronous batching: From cascades to free routes. In: Martin, D., Serjantov, A. (eds.) PET 2004. LNCS, vol. 3424, pp. 186–206. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Furuichi, S., Yanagi, K., Kuriyama, K.: Fundamental properties of Tsallis relative entropy. Journal of Mathematical Physics 45(12), 4868–4877 (2004)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Garcia, F.D., Hasuo, I., Pieters, W., van Rossum, P.: Provable anonymity. In: Proc.3rd ACM Workshop on Formal Methods in Security Engineering, pp. 63–72. ACM Press, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Halpern, J.Y., O’Neill, K.R.: Anonymity and information hiding in multiagent systems. In: Proc. 16th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Hoare, C.A.R.: Communicating Sequential Processes. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1985)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Hughes, D., Shmatikov, V.: Information hiding, anonymity and privacy: a modular approach. Journal of Computer Security 12(1), 3–36 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Kesdogan, D., Egner, J.: Stop-and-go MIXes: Providing probabilistic anonymity in an open system. In: Aucsmith, D. (ed.) IH 1998. LNCS, vol. 1525, pp. 83–98. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Kullback, S., Leibler, R.A.: On information and sufficiency. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 22(1), 79–86 (1951)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  18. Kwiatkowska, M., Norman, G., Parker, D.: PRISM: Probabilistic symbolic model checker. In: Field, T., Harrison, P.G., Bradley, J., Harder, U. (eds.) TOOLS 2002. LNCS, vol. 2324, pp. 200–204. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Milner, R.: Communication and Concurrency. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1989)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. Moskowitz, I.S., Newman, R.E., Crepeau, D.P., Miller, A.R.: Covert channels and anonymizing networks. In: Proceedings of 2nd ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, pp. 79–88. ACM Press, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Newman, R.E., Nalla, V.R., Moskowitz, I.S.: Anonymity and covert channels in simple timed mix-firewalls. In: Martin, D., Serjantov, A. (eds.) PET 2004. LNCS, vol. 3424, pp. 1–16. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Reiter, M.K., Rubin, A.D.: Crowds: Anonymity for Web transactions. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security 1(1), 66–92 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Schneider, S., Sidiropoulos, A.: CSP and anonymity. In: Martella, G., Kurth, H., Montolivo, E., Bertino, E. (eds.) Computer Security - ESORICS 1996. LNCS, vol. 1146, pp. 198–218. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Segala, R.: Modeling and Verification of Randomized Distributed Real-Time Systems. PhD thesis, MIT, Deptartment of EECS (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Serjantov, A., Danezis, G.: Towards an information theoretic metric for anonymity. In: Dingledine, R., Syverson, P.F. (eds.) PET 2002. LNCS, vol. 2482, pp. 41–53. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Shmatikov, V.: Probabilistic model checking of an anonymity system. Journal of Computer Security 12(3/4), 355–377 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Syverson, P.F., Goldschlag, D.M., Reed, M.G.: Anonymous connections and onion routing. In: Proc. 18th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 44–54. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  28. van der Meyden, R., Su, K.: Symbolic model checking the knowledge of the dining cryptographers. In: Proc. 17th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop, pp. 280–291. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2004)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of New South Wales, School of Computer Science and Engineering, 2052 Sydney, Australia

    Yuxin Deng

  2. Shanghai Jiaotong University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 200240 Shanghai, China

    Yuxin Deng

  3. Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Department für Informatik, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany

    Jun Pang

  4. INRIA Futurs and LIX, École Polytechnique, Rue de Saclay, 91128 Palaiseau, France

    Peng Wu

Authors
  1. Yuxin Deng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jun Pang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Peng Wu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Theo Dimitrakos Fabio Martinelli Peter Y. A. Ryan Steve Schneider

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Deng, Y., Pang, J., Wu, P. (2007). Measuring Anonymity with Relative Entropy. In: Dimitrakos, T., Martinelli, F., Ryan, P.Y.A., Schneider, S. (eds) Formal Aspects in Security and Trust. FAST 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4691. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75227-1_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75227-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-75226-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-75227-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation