Network Working Group                                          M. Hansen, Ed. Hansen
Internet-Draft                                                  ULD Kiel
Intended status: Informational                             H. Tschofenig
Expires: September 15, 2011 May 1, 2012                              Nokia Siemens Networks
                                                          March 14,
                                                           R. Smith, Ed.
                                                               JANET(UK)
                                                        October 29, 2011

                          Privacy Terminology for Talking about
                draft-hansen-privacy-terminology-03.txt

Abstract

   Privacy by Data Minimization: Anonymity,
   Unlinkability, Undetectability, Unobservability, Pseudonymity, is a concept that has been debated and
                          Identity Management
                draft-hansen-privacy-terminology-02.txt

Abstract

   This argued throughout the
   last few millennia by all manner of people.  Its most striking
   feature is that nobody seems able to agree upon a precise definition
   of what it actually is.  In order to discuss privacy in any
   meaningful way a tightly defined context needs to be elucidated.  The
   specific context of privacy used within this document is that of
   "personal data", information about an attempt to consolidate terminology individual stored and/or
   transmitted electronically in Internet protocols.  This context is
   highly relevant since a lot of work within the field IETF involves defining
   protocols that can potentially transport (either explicitly or
   implicitly) personal data.

   This document aims to establish a basic lexicon around privacy by data minimization.  It motivates and develops definitions
   for anonymity/identifiability, (un)linkability, (un)detectability,
   (un)observability, pseudonymity, identity, partial identity, digital
   identity and identity management.  Starting the definitions from so
   that IETF contributors who wish to discuss privacy considerations
   within their work can do so using terminology consistent across the
   anonymity and unlinkability perspective reveals some deeper
   structures in this field.
   area.

   Note: This document is discussed at
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 15, 2011. May 1, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Anonymity  Context  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3 .  5
   3.  Unlinkability  Anonymity  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.  Anonymity in Terms of  Unlinkability  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Undetectability and Unobservability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   6.  Pseudonymity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.  Undetectability  . . 13
   7.  Identity Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   8.  Contributors  9
   6.  Pseudonymity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   9. 10
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   10. 12
   8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   11. 13
   9.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   12. 14
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     12.1. 15
     10.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     12.2. 15
     10.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   Appendix A.  Overview 15

1.  Introduction

   Privacy is a concept that has been debated and argued throughout the
   last few millennia by all manner of people, including philosophers,
   psychologists, lawyers, and more recently, computer scientists.  Its
   most striking feature is that nobody seems able to agree upon a
   precise definition of Main Definitions what it actually is.  Every individual, every
   group, and every culture have their Opposites  . . 22
   Appendix B.  Relationships between Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1.  Introduction

   Early papers own different views and
   preconceptions about the concept - some mutually complimentary, some
   distinctly different.  However, it is generally (but not
   unanimously!) agreed that the protection of privacy is "A Good Thing"
   and often, people only realize what it was when they feel that they
   have lost it.

   Even within the specific content of computing and computer science,
   there are still many facets to privacy.  For example, consideration
   of privacy in terms of personal information is distinctly different
   from consideration of privacy in a geographical information sense: in
   the 1980ies about former a loss of privacy might be framed as the uncontrolled
   release of personal information without the subject's consent, while
   in the latter it might be the ability to compute the location of an
   individual beyond a certain degree of accuracy.

   In order to discuss privacy in any meaningful way a tightly defined
   context needs to be elucidated.  The specific context of privacy used
   within this document is that of "personal data", information about an
   individual stored and/or transmitted electronically in Internet
   protocols.  This context is highly relevant since a lot of work
   within the IETF involves defining protocols that can potentially
   transport (either explicitly or implicitly) personal data and can
   therefore either, by dint of design decisions when creating them,
   enable either privacy protection or result in privacy breaches.  In
   this specific context, discussions of privacy largely centre around
   the collection minimalization, the usage, and release of such
   personal data.

   Work in this area of privacy and privacy protection over the last few
   decades has centered on the idea of data minimization
   already deal with minimization; it uses
   terminologies such as anonymity, unlinkability, unobservability, and
   pseudonymity.  These terms are often used in discussions about the
   privacy properties of systems.

   Data

   The core principal of data minimization means is that first of all, the ability for
   others to collect any personal data should be minimized. removed.  Often,
   however, the collection of personal data cannot not be prevented entirely.  In
   such a case,
   entirely, in which case the goal is to minimize the collection amount of
   personal data.
   The time how long collected personal data is stored should that can be
   minimized. collected for a given purpose and to offer
   ways to control the dissemination of personal data.

   Data minimization is the only generic strategy to enable anonymity, enhance individual
   privacy in cases where valid personal information is used since all correct
   valid personal data help inherently provides some linkability.  Other
   techniques have been proposed and implemented that aim to identify if we exclude enhance
   privacy by providing misinformation (inaccurate or erroneous
   information, provided usually without conscious effort at misleading, deceiving,
   or persuading one way to mislead or another)
   deceive) or disinformation (deliberately false or distorted
   information given out provided in order to mislead or deceive).

   Furthermore, data minimization is the only generic strategy to enable
   unlinkability, since all correct personal data provide some
   linkability if we exclude providing misinformation or disinformation.  However, these
   techniques are out of scope for this document.

   This document aims to establish a basic lexicon around privacy so
   that IETF contributors who wish to discuss privacy considerations
   within their work (see [I-D.iab-privacy-considerations]) can do so
   using terminology consistent across areas.  Note that it does not aim
   attempt to collect define all terms used in the area aspects of
   privacy.  Even the definition privacy terminology, rather it just
   establishes terms to some of the term 'privacy' itself difficult
   due most common ideas and concepts.

2.  Context

   To keep discussion as simple as possible in many cases it is usual to
   not distinguish between a human using some software, the contextual nature of it; the understanding of privacy has
   changed over time.  For software
   itself, and the purpose of device on which it is running.  In this document we refer to one
   fairly well established definition by Alan Westin from 1967 [West67]:

      "Privacy case, it is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to
      determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information
      about them
   assumed that there is communicated to others.  Viewed in terms of a one-to-one relationship between the
      relation of device
   running the individual to social participation, privacy software that is the
      voluntary and temporary withdrawal scope of a person from Internet protocol
   development and the general
      society through physical or psychological means, either in a state
      of solitude or small-group intimacy or, human using that software.

   There are various cases, however, when among larger groups, this human-to-software link is
   not one-to-one.  Protocols developed in a condition of anonymity or reserve.", see page 7 of [West67].

2.  Anonymity

   To enable anonymity the IETF typically do not
   mandate any specific relationship but typically envision that uses of
   a subject, there always has to specific protocol may reveal those relationships.  For example,
   multiple hosts used by different persons may be attached to an
   appropriate set of subjects with potentially single
   Internet gateway within a household.  From the same attributes.

   Definition:  Anonymity Internet Service
   Provider point of view all these devices belong to a subject means that single person:
   the subject is not
      identifiable within subscriber with whom a set of subjects, the anonymity set.

   Note:

      "not identifiable within contract was established.  Unless there
   are good reasons to highlight the anonymity set" means that only more complex one-to-many
   relationship this document will present scenarios using the information the attacker has at his discretion, the subject is
      not distinguishable from the other subjects within simpler
   one-to-one relationship, without loss of generality, for editorial
   reasons.

   When necessary we use the anonymity
      set.

      In order to underline that there is a possibility term initiator and responder to quantify
      anonymity for some applications (instead refer to treating it purely as
   the communication interaction of a binary value it protocol.  This particular
   terminology is possible used to use highlight that many protocols utilize
   bidirectional communication where both ends send and receive data.

   Finally, we assume that the following variation attacker uses all information available
   to infer (probabilities of) his items of
      the previous definition: "Anonymity interest (IOIs).  These IOIs
   may be attributes (and their values) of personal data, or may be
   actions such as who sent, or who received, which messages.

3.  Anonymity

   Definition:  Anonymity of a subject from an attacker's perspective
      means that the attacker cannot sufficiently identify the subject
      within a set of subjects, the anonymity set."

   The set.

   To enable anonymity of a subject, there always has to be an
   appropriate set is of subjects with potentially the same attributes.
   The set of all possible subjects. subjects is known as the anonymity set, and
   membership of this set may vary over time.

   The set of possible subjects depends on the knowledge of the
   attacker.  Thus, anonymity is relative with respect to the attacker.  With respect to
   actors, the anonymity set consists of the subjects who might cause an
   action.  With respect to actees, the anonymity set consists of the
   subjects who might be acted upon.
   Therefore, a sender an initiator may be anonymous (sender (initiator anonymity) only
   within a set of potential senders,
   his/her sender initiators - their initiator anonymity set, set
   - which itself may be a subset of all subjects who may send a
   message.  The same for the recipient means
   that  Conversely a recipient responder may be anonymous (recipient (responder
   anonymity) only within a set of potential recipients, his/her recipient responders - their
   responder anonymity set.  Both anonymity sets may be disjoint, be the same, or they may overlap.
   The anonymity sets
   overlap, or may vary over time.  Since we assume that the
   attacker does not forget anything he knows, the anonymity set cannot
   increase w.r.t. a particular IOI.  Especially subjects joining the
   system in a later stage, do not belong to the anonymity set from the
   point of view of an attacker observing the system in an earlier
   stage.  (Please note that if the attacker cannot decide whether the
   joining subjects were present earlier, the anonymity set does not
   increase either: It just stays the same.)  Due to linkability, cf.
   below, be the anonymity set normally can only decrease.

   Anonymity of a set of subjects within same.

      As an anonymity set means that all
   these individual subjects are not identifiable within this anonymity
   set.  In this definition, "set of subjects" is just taken to describe
   that the anonymity property holds for all elements of the set.
   Another possible definition would be to example consider the anonymity
   property RFC 3325 (P-Asserted-Identity, PAI)
      [RFC3325], an extension for the set as a whole.  Then a semantically quite different
   definition could read: Anonymity of a set S of subjects within a
   larger anonymity set A means Session Initiation Protocol (SIP),
      that it is not distinguishable whether
   the subject S whose anonymity is at stake (and which clearly is
   within A) is within S or not.

   Anonymity in general as well allows subjects, such as the anonymity of each particular
   subject is a concept which is very much context dependent (on, e.g.,
   subjects population, attributes, time frame, etc).  In order VoIP caller, to
   quantify anonymity within concrete situations, one would have to
   describe the system in sufficient detail, which is practically instruct an
      intermediary he or she trusts not
   always possible for large open systems.  Besides to populate the quantity of
   anonymity provided within a particular setting, there is another
   aspect of anonymity: SIP From header
      field with its robustness.  Robustness of anonymity
   characterizes how stable the quantity of anonymity is against changes
   in the particular setting, e.g., a stronger attacker or different
   probability distributions.  We might use quality of anonymity as a
   term comprising both quantity authenticated and robustness of anonymity.  To keep
   this text as simple as possible, we will mainly discuss the quantity
   of anonymity in the following, using the wording "strength of
   anonymity". verified identity.  The above definitions of anonymity and the mentioned measures recipient
      of
   quantifying anonymity are fine to characterize the status of a
   subject in a world call, as it is.  If we want to describe changes to the
   anonymity of a subject if the world is changed somewhat, e.g., well as any other entity outside the
   subject uses user's trust
      domain, would therefore only learn that the communication network differently or uses SIP message (typically
      a modified
   communication network, we need another definition of anonymity
   capturing the delta.  The simplest way to express this delta is by
   the observations of "the" attacker.

   Definition:  An anonymity delta (regarding SIP INVITE) was sent with a subject's anonymity)
      from an attacker's perspective specifies the difference between
      the subject's anonymity taking into account the attacker's
      observations (i.e., the attacker's a-posteriori knowledge) and header field 'From: "Anonymous"
      <sip:anonymous@anonymous.invalid>' rather than the subject's anonymity given the attacker's a-priori knowledge only.

   Note:

      In some publications, the a-priori knowledge of the attacker
      address-of-record, which is
      called "background knowledge" and the a-posteriori knowledge typically thought of as the attacker is called "new knowledge".

   As we can quantify anonymity in concrete situations, so we can
   quantify the anonymity delta.  This can be done by just defining:
   quantity(anonymity delta) := quantity(anonymity_a-posteriori) -
   quantity(anonymity_a-priori)

   If anonymity_a-posteriori and anonymity_a-priori are "public
      address" of the same, their
   quantification user.  When PAI is used the same and therefore subject becomes
      anonymous within the difference of these
   quantifications is 0.  If initiator anonymity can only decrease (which usually
   is quite a reasonable assumption), the maximum of quantity(anonymity
   delta) set that is 0.

   Since anonymity cannot increase, the anonymity delta can never be
   positive.  Having an anonymity delta populated by
      every subject making use of zero means that anonymity
   stays the same.  This means specific intermediary.

      Note that if the attacker has no a-priori
   knowledge about the particular subject, having no anonymity delta
   implies anonymity.  But if the attacker has an a-priori knowledge
   covering all actions of the particular subject, having no anonymity
   delta does not imply any anonymity at all.  If there is no anonymity this example assumes that other personal data cannot be
      inferred from the very beginning, even preserving it completely does not yield
   any anonymity.  To be able to express this conveniently, we use
   wordings like "perfect preservation of other SIP protocol payloads, which is a subject's anonymity".  It
   might be worthwhile to generalize "preservation of anonymity of
   single subjects" useful
      assumption to "preservation of anonymity of sets of subjects",
   in the limiting case all subjects be made in an anonymity set.  An important
   special case is that the "set of subjects" is the set analysis of subjects
   having one or several attribute values A in common.  Then the meaning
   of "preservation of anonymity of this set of subjects" is that
   knowing A does specific protocol
      extension but not decrease anonymity.  Having a negative anonymity
   delta means that anonymity is decreased.

3. for analysis of an entire architecture.

4.  Unlinkability

   Definition:  Unlinkability of two or more items of interest (IOIs,
      e.g., Items Of Interest (e.g.,
      subjects, messages, actions, ...) from an attacker's perspective
      means that within the system (comprising these and
      possibly other items), the attacker cannot sufficiently
      distinguish whether these IOIs are related or not.

   Linkability is the negation of unlinkability:

   Definition:  Linkability of two or more items a particular set of interest (IOIs,
      e.g., subjects, messages, actions, ...) from an attacker's
      perspective means that within the system (comprising these and
      possibly other items), information, the attacker can sufficiently
      cannot distinguish whether these IOIs are related or not.

   For example, in a scenario with at least two senders, two messages
   sent by subjects within the same anonymity set are unlinkable for an
   attacker if for him, the probability that these two messages are sent
   by the same sender is sufficiently close to 1/(number of senders).

   Definition:  An unlinkability delta of two or more items of interest
      (IOIs, e.g., subjects, messages, actions, ...) from an attacker's
      perspective specifies the difference between the unlinkability of
      these IOIs taking into account the attacker's observations and the
      unlinkability of these IOIs given the attacker's a-priori
      knowledge only.

   Since we assume that the attacker does not forget anything,
   unlinkability cannot increase.  Normally, the attacker's knowledge
   cannot decrease (analogously to Shannon's definition of "perfect
   secrecy").  An exception of this rule is the scenario where the use
   of misinformation (inaccurate or erroneous information, provided
   usually without conscious effort at misleading, deceiving, or
   persuading one way or another [Wils93]) or disinformation
   (deliberately false or distorted information given out in order to
   mislead or deceive [Wils93]) leads to a growing uncertainty of the
   attacker which information is correct.  A related, but different
   aspect is that information may become wrong (i.e., outdated) simply
   because the state of the world changes over time.  Since privacy is
   not only about to protect the current state, but the past and history
   of (with a data subject as well, we will not make use of this different
   aspect in the rest of this document.  Therefore, the unlinkability
   delta can never be positive.  Having an unlinkability delta
      high enough degree of zero
   means that the probability of those items being related from the
   attacker's perspective stays exactly the same before (a-priori
   knowledge) and after the attacker's observations (a-posteriori
   knowledge of the attacker).  If the attacker has no a-priori
   knowledge about the particular IOIs, having an unlinkability delta of
   zero implies unlinkability.  But if the attacker has a-priori
   knowledge covering the relationships of all IOIs, having an
   unlinkability delta of zero does not imply any unlinkability at all.
   If there is no unlinkability from the very beginning, even preserving
   it completely does not yield any unlinkability.  To be able to
   express this conveniently, we use wordings like "perfect preservation
   of unlinkability w.r.t. specific items" to express that the
   unlinkability delta is zero.  It might be worthwhile to generalize
   "preservation of unlinkability of two IOIs" to "preservation of
   unlinkability of sets of IOIs", in the limiting case all IOIs in the
   system.

   For example, the unlinkability delta of two messages is sufficiently
   small (zero) for an attacker if the probability describing his
   a-posteriori knowledge that these two messages are sent by the same
   sender and/or received by the same recipient is sufficiently
   (exactly) the same as the probability imposed by his a-priori
   knowledge.  Please note that unlinkability useful).

   Unlinkability of two (or more) messages may of course may depend on
   whether their content is protected against the attacker considered. attacker.  In particular, the
   cases where this is not true, messages may only be unlinkable if we
   assume that the attacker is not able to get infer information on about the
   sender
   initiator or recipient responder from the message content.  Yet with access to
   their content itself.  It is worth
   noting that even without if the content itself does not betray linkable
   information explicitly, deep semantical analysis the attacker of a message
   sequence can
   notice often detect certain characteristics which link them together - e.g.
   together, e.g., similarities in structure, style, use of some words
   or phrases, consistent appearance of some grammatical errors, etc.  In a sense,
   content of messages may play a role as "side channel" in a similar
   way as in cryptanalysis - i.e., content of messages may leak some
   information on their linkability.

   Roughly speaking, no unlinkability delta of items means that the
   ability of the attacker to relate these items does not increase by
   observing the system or by possibly interacting with it.

   The definitions of unlinkability, linkability and unlinkability delta
   do not mention any particular set of IOIs they are restricted to.
   Therefore, the definitions of unlinkability and unlinkability delta
   are very strong, since they cover the whole system.  We could weaken
   the definitions by restricting them to part of the system:
   "Unlinkability of two or more IOIs from an attacker's perspective
   means that within an unlinkability set of IOIs (comprising these and
   possibly other items), the attacker cannot sufficiently distinguish
   whether these IOIs are related or not."

4.  Anonymity in Terms of Unlinkability

   To describe anonymity in terms of unlinkability, we have to augment
   the definitions of anonymity given in Section 2 by making explicit
   the attributes anonymity relates to.  For example, if we choose the
   attribute "having sent a message" then we can define:

   A sender s sends a set of messages M anonymously, iff s is anonymous
   within the set of potential senders of M, the sender anonymity set of
   M.

   If the attacker's focus is not on the sender, but on the message, we
   can define:

   A set of messages M is sent anonymously, iff M property can have been sent by
   each set of potential senders, i.e., by any set of subjects within
   the cross product of the sender anonymity sets of each message m
   within M.

   When considering sending and receiving of messages as attributes, the
   items of interest (IOIs) are "who has sent or received which
   message", then, anonymity of a subject w.r.t. an attribute may be
   defined as unlinkability of this subject and this attribute.  In the
   wording of the definition of unlinkability: a subject s is related to
   the attribute value "has sent message m" if s has sent message m. s
   is not related to that attribute value if s has not sent message m.
   Same for receiving.Unlinkability is a sufficient condition of
   anonymity, but it is not a necessary condition.  Thus, failing
   unlinkability w.r.t. some attribute value(s) does not necessarily
   eliminate anonymity considered as defined in Section 2; in specific cases (i.e.,
   depending on the attribute value(s)) even the strength of anonymity
   may not be affected.

   Definition:  Sender anonymity of a subject means that to this
      potentially sending subject, each message is unlinkable.

   Note:

      The property unlinkability might be more "fine-grained" than
      anonymity,
   version of anonymity since there are many more relations where
   unlinkability might be an issue than just the relation of "anonymity"
   between subjects and IOIs.  Therefore,  As such, it may sometimes be necessary to
   explicitly state to which attributes anonymity refers to (beyond the
   subject to IOI relationship).  An attacker might get to know
   information on linkability of various messages while not necessarily
   reducing anonymity of the particular subject - depending on the defined
      measures.  An subject.  As an example might be that the an
   attacker, in spite of being able to link, e.g., by timing, link all encrypted messages of in a
   set of transactions, does not learn who is doing this transaction.

   Correspondingly, recipient anonymity of a subject means that to this
   potentially receiving subject, each message is unlinkable.

   Relationship anonymity of a pair of subjects, the potentially sending
   subject and the potentially receiving subject, means that to this
   potentially communicating pair of subjects, each message is
   unlinkable.  In other words, sender and recipient (or each recipient
   in case of multicast) are unlinkable.  As sender anonymity of a
   message cannot hold against the sender of this message himself nor
   can recipient anonymity hold against any identify of the recipients w.r.t.
   himself, relationship anonymity subject who
   is considered w.r.t. outsiders only,
   i.e., attackers being neither the sender nor one of the recipients of the messages under consideration.

   Thus, relationship anonymity is a weaker property than each source of sender
   anonymity and recipient anonymity: The attacker might know who sends
   which messages or he might know who receives which messages (and in
   some cases even who sends which messages and who receives which
   messages).  But as long as for the attacker each message sent and
   each message received transactions.

   There are unlinkable, he cannot link the respective
   senders to recipients and vice versa, i.e., relationship anonymity
   holds.  The relationship anonymity set can be defined to be the cross
   product of two potentially distinct sets, the set several items of potential
   senders and terminology heavily related to
   unlinkability:

   Definition:  We use the set of potential recipients or - if it is possible term "profiling" to
   exclude some of these pairs - mean learning information
      about a subset of this cross product.  So the
   relationship anonymity set is the set of all possible sender-
   recipient(s)-pairs.  In case of multicast, the set of potential
   recipients is the power set of all potential recipients.  If we take particular subject while that subject remains anonymous to
      the perspective of attacker.  For example, if an attacker concludes that a
      subject sending (or receiving) plays a particular
   message, specific computer game, reads specific news
      article on a website, and uploads certain videos, then the relationship anonymity set becomes
      subjects activities have been profiled, even if the set of all
   potential recipients (senders) of attacker is
      unable to identify that particular message.  So fixing
   one factor specific subject.

   Definition:  "Relationship anonymity" of the cross product gives a recipient anonymity set or a
   sender anonymity set.

   Note:

      The following is an explanation pair of the statement made in the
      previous paragraph regarding relationship anonymity: For all
      attackers it holds subjects means
      that sender anonymity implies relationship
      anonymity, and recipient anonymity implies relationship anonymity.
      This is true if anonymity is taken as a binary property: Either it
      holds or it does not hold.  If we consider quantities of
      anonymity, the validity of the implication possibly depends on the
      particular definitions of how to quantify sender anonymity and
      recipient anonymity on the one hand, and how to quantify
      relationship anonymity on the other.  There exists at least one
      attacker model, where relationship anonymity does neither imply
      sender anonymity nor (or each recipient anonymity.  Consider an attacker
      who neither controls any senders nor any recipients in case of messages,
      but all lines and - maybe - some other stations.  If w.r.t. this
      attacker relationship anonymity holds, you can neither argue that
      against him sender anonymity holds nor that recipient anonymity
      holds. multicast)
      are unlinkable.  The classical MIX-net [Chau81] without dummy
      traffic is one implementation with just this property: The
      attacker sees who sends messages when when, and who receives messages
      when, but cannot figure out who sends is sending messages to whom.

5.  Undetectability and Unobservability

   In contrast to anonymity and unlinkability, where not the IOI, but
   only its relationship to subjects or other IOIs is protected, for
   undetectability,

   Definition:  The term "unlinkable session" refers the IOIs are protected as such.  Undetectability can
   be regarded as a possible and desirable property ability of steganographic
   systems.  Therefore it matches the information hiding terminology
   (see [Pfit96], [ZFKP98]).  In contrast, anonymity, dealing with the
   relationship of discernible IOIs
      system to subjects, does not directly fit
   into that terminology, but independently represents render a different
   dimension of properties.

   Definition:  Undetectability of an item of interest (IOI) from an
      attacker's perspective means that the attacker cannot sufficiently
      distinguish whether it exists or not.

   If we consider messages as IOIs, this means that messages are not
   sufficiently discernible from, e.g., "random noise".  A slightly more
   precise formulation might be that messages are not discernible from
   no message.  A quantification of this property might measure the
   number of indistinguishable IOIs and/or the probabilities of
   distinguishing these IOIs.

   Undetectability is maximal iff whether an IOI exists or not is
   completely indistinguishable.  We call this perfect undetectability.

   Definition:  An undetectability delta of an item set of interest (IOI) actions by a subject unlinkable from an attacker's perspective specifies the difference between
      the undetectability of the IOI taking into account the attacker's
      observations and the undetectability of the IOI given the
      attacker's a-priori knowledge only.

   The undetectability delta is zero iff whether an IOI exists or not is
   indistinguishable to exactly the same degree whether the attacker
   takes his observations into account or not.  We call this "perfect
   preservation of undetectability".

   Undetectability of an IOI clearly is only possible w.r.t. subjects
   being not involved in the IOI (i.e., neither being the sender nor one
   of the recipients of a message).  Therefore, if we just speak about
   undetectability without spelling out
      another over a set sequence of IOIs, it goes without
   saying that this protocol runs (sessions).  This term is
      useful for cases where a statement comprising only those IOIs the
   attacker is not involved in.

   As the definition sequence of undetectability stands, it has nothing to do
   with anonymity - it does not mention any relationship interactions between IOIs
   and subjects.  Even more, for subjects being involved in an IOI,
   undetectability of this IOI
      initiator and a responder is clearly impossible.  Therefore, early
   papers describing new mechanisms necessary for undetectability designed the
   mechanisms in application logic
      rather than a way that if single-shot message.  We refer to this as a subject necessarily could detect session.
      When doing an
   IOI, the other subject(s) involved in that IOI enjoyed anonymity at
   least.  The rational for analysis with respect to unlinkability we compare
      this is session to strive for data minimization: No
   subject should get a sequence of sessions to determine linkability.

   Definition:  We refer as a "linking identifier" to know any (potentially personal) data - except
   this is absolutely necessary.  This means parameter that

   1.  Subjects being not involved in the
      an attacker can observe about an IOI get and use to know absolutely
       nothing.

   2.  Subjects being involved in the IOI only get link it to know the IOI, but
       not the other subjects involved - similar
      IOIs.  For example, the other subjects may stay
       anonymous.

   The attributes "sending window size header transmitted in a message" or "receiving
      typical HTTP request is a message" are the
   only kinds of attributes considered, 1. and 2. together provide data
   minimization in this setting in an absolute sense. linking identifier.

5.  Undetectability
   by uninvolved subjects together with anonymity even if IOIs can
   necessarily be detected by the involved subjects has been called
   unobservability:

   Definition:  Unobservability  Undetectability of an item of interest (IOI) means

      *  undetectability of the IOI against all subjects uninvolved in
         it and

      *  anonymity of the subject(s) involved in the IOI even against
         the other subject(s) involved in that IOI.

   As we had anonymity sets of subjects with respect to anonymity, we
   have unobservability sets of subjects with respect to
   unobservability.  Mainly, unobservability deals with IOIs instead of
   subjects only.  Though, like anonymity sets, unobservability sets
   consist of all subjects who might possibly cause these IOIs, i.e.
   send and/or receive messages.

   Sender unobservability then from an
      attacker's perspective means that it is sufficiently
   undetectable whether any sender within the unobservability set sends.
   Sender unobservability is perfect iff it is completely undetectable
   whether any sender within the unobservability set sends.

   Recipient unobservability then means that it is attacker cannot sufficiently
   undetectable
      distinguish whether any recipient within the unobservability set
   receives.  Recipient unobservability is perfect iff it is completely
   undetectable whether any recipient within exists or not.

   In contrast to anonymity and unlinkability, where the unobservability set
   receives.

   Relationship unobservability then means that it is sufficiently
   undetectable whether anything IOI is sent out of a set of could-be
   senders to a set
   protected indirectly through protection of could-be recipients.  In other words, it is
   sufficiently undetectable whether within the IOI's relationship
   unobservability set of all possible sender-recipient(s)-pairs, a
   message is sent in any relationship.  Relationship unobservability is
   perfect iff it is completely undetectable whether anything is sent
   out of a set of could-be senders to
   a set of could-be recipients.

   All subject or other things being equal, unobservability IOI, undetectability is the stronger, the
   larger the respective unobservability set is.

   Definition:  An unobservability delta direct protection of
   an item of interest (IOI)
      means

      *  undetectability delta of the IOI against all subjects
         uninvolved in it and

      *  anonymity delta of the subject(s) involved in the IOI even
         against the other subject(s) involved in that IOI.

   Since we assume that the attacker does not forget anything,
   unobservability cannot increase.  Therefore, the unobservability
   delta  For example, undetectability can never be positive.  Having an unobservability delta of zero
   w.r.t. an IOI means an undetectability delta of zero of the IOI
   against all subjects uninvolved in the IOI regarded as a possible
   and an anonymity delta desirable property of
   zero against those subjects involved in the IOI.  To be able to
   express this conveniently, steganographic systems.

   If we use wordings like "perfect preservation
   of unobservability" to express consider messages as IOIs, then undetectability means that the unobservability delta is
   zero.
   messages are not sufficiently discernible from, e.g., "random noise".

6.  Pseudonymity

   Having anonymity of human beings, unlinkability, and maybe
   unobservability is superb w.r.t. data minimization, but would prevent
   any useful two-way communication.  For many applications, we need
   appropriate kinds of identifiers:

   Definition:  A pseudonym is an identifier of a subject other than one
      of the subject's real names.

   Note:

   Achieving anonymity, unlinkability, and maybe undetectability may
   enable the ideal of data minimization.  Unfortunately, it would also
   prevent a certain class of useful two-way communication scenarios.
   Therefore, for many applications, we need to accept a certain amount
   of linkability and detectability while attempting to retain
   unlinkability between the subject and their transactions.  This is
   achieved through appropriate kinds of pseudonymous identifiers.
   These identifiers are then often used to refer to established state
   or are used for access control purposes.  An identifier is defined in
   [id] as "a lexical token that names entities".

      In our setting 'subject' means sender or recipient.

   The term 'real name' is the antonym to "pseudonym".  There may be
   multiple real names over lifetime, a lifetime -- in particular the legal names,
      i.e., for names.
   For example, a human being may possess the names which appear on the
   their birth certificate or on other official identity documents
   issued by the State; for a legal person the name under which it
   operates and which is registered in official registers (e.g.,
   commercial register or register of associations).  A human being's
   real name typically comprises their given name and a family name.  In the
      realm of identifiers, it is tempting to define anonymity as "the
      attacker cannot sufficiently determine a real name of the
      subject".  But despite the simplicity of this definition, it is
      severely restricted: It can only deal with subjects which have at
      least one real name.  It presumes that it is clear who is
      authorized to attach real names to subjects.  It fails to work if
      the relation to real names is irrelevant for the application at
      hand.  Therefore, we stick to the definitions given in Section 2.
   Note that from a mere technological perspective it cannot always be
   determined whether an identifier of a subject is a pseudonym or a
   real name.

   Additional useful terms are:

   Definition:  The subject which "holder" of the pseudonym refers to is the holder
      of subject to whom the pseudonym.
      pseudonym refers.

   Definition:  A subject is pseudonymous "pseudonymous" if a pseudonym is used as
      identifier instead of one of its real names.

   Definition:  Pseudonymity is the state of remaining pseudonymous
      through the use of pseudonyms as identifiers.

   So sender

   Sender pseudonymity is defined as the sender being pseudonymous,
   recipient pseudonymity is defined as the recipient being
   pseudonymous.

   In order to be useful in the context of Internet communication we use
   the term digital pseudonym and declare it as a pseudonym that is
   suitable to be used to authenticate the holder's IOIs.

   Defining the process of preparing for the use of pseudonyms, e.g., by
   establishing certain rules how and under which conditions civil
   identities of holders of pseudonyms will be disclosed by so-called
   identity brokers or how to prevent uncovered claims by so-called
   liability brokers, leads to the more general notion of pseudonymity,
   as defined below.

   Note:

      Identity brokers have for the pseudonyms they are the identity
      broker for the information who is their respective holder.
      Therefore, identity brokers can be implemented as a special kind
      of certification authorities for pseudonyms.  Since anonymity can
      be described as a particular kind of unlinkability, cf. Section 4,
      the concept of identity broker can be generalized to linkability
      broker.  A linkability broker is a (trusted) third party that,
      adhering to agreed rules, enables linking IOIs for those entities
      being entitled to get to know the linking.

   To authenticate IOIs relative to pseudonyms usually is not enough to
   achieve accountability for IOIs.

   Therefore, in many situations, it might make sense to let identity
   brokers authenticate digital pseudonyms (i.e., check the civil
   identity of the holder of the pseudonym and then issue a digitally
   signed statement that this particular identity broker has proof of
   the identity of the holder of this digital pseudonym and is willing
   to divulge that proof under well-defined circumstances) or both.

   Note:

      If the holder of the pseudonym is a natural person or a legal
      person, civil identity has the usual meaning, i.e. the identity
      attributed to that person by a State (e.g., a natural person being
      represented by the social security number or the combination of
      name, date of birth, and location of birth etc.).  If the holder
      is, e.g., a computer, it remains to be defined what "civil
      identity" should mean.  It could mean, for example, exact type and
      serial number of the computer (or essential components of it) or
      even include the natural person or legal person responsible for
      its operation.

   If the digitally signed statement of a trusted identity broker is
   checked before entering into a transaction with the holder of that
   pseudonym, accountability can be realized in spite of anonymity.

   Whereas anonymity and accountability are the extremes with respect to
   linkability to subjects, pseudonymity is the entire field between and
   including these extremes.  Thus, pseudonymity comprises all degrees
   of linkability to a subject.  Ongoing use of the same pseudonym
   allows the holder to establish or consolidate a reputation.
   Establishing and/or consolidating a reputation under a pseudonym is,
   of course, insecure if the pseudonym does not enable to authenticate
   messages, i.e., if the pseudonym is not a digital pseudonym.  Then,
   at any moment, another subject might use this pseudonym possibly
   invalidating the reputation, both for the holder of the pseudonym and
   all others having to do with this pseudonym.  Some kinds of
   pseudonyms enable dealing with claims in case of abuse of
   unlinkability to holders: Firstly, third parties (identity brokers)
   may have the possibility to reveal the civil identity of the holder
   in order to provide means for investigation or prosecution.  To
   improve the robustness of anonymity, chains of identity brokers may
   be used [Chau81].  Secondly, third parties may act as liability
   brokers of the holder to clear a debt or settle a claim.  [BuPf90]
   presents the particular case of value brokers.

   There are many properties of pseudonyms which may be of importance in
   specific application contexts.  In order to describe the properties
   of pseudonyms with respect to anonymity, we limit our view to two
   aspects and give some typical examples:

   The knowledge of the linking may not be a constant, but change over
   time for some or even all people.  Normally, for non-transferable
   pseudonyms the knowledge of the linking cannot decrease (with the
   exception of misinformation or disinformation, which may blur the
   attacker's knowledge.).  Typical kinds of such pseudonyms are:

   Public Pseudonym:  The linking between a public pseudonym and its
      holder may be publicly known even from the very beginning.  E.g.,
      the linking could be listed in public directories such as the
      entry of a phone number in combination with its owner.

   Initially non-Public Pseudonym:  The linking between an initially
      non-public pseudonym and its holder may be known by certain
      parties, but is not public at least initially.  E.g., a bank
      account where the bank can look up the linking may serve as a non-
      public pseudonym.  For some specific non-public pseudonyms,
      certification authorities acting as identity brokers could reveal
      the civil identity of the holder in case of abuse.

   Initially Unlinked Pseudonym:  The linking between an initially
      unlinked pseudonym and its holder is - at least initially - not
      known to anybody with the possible exception of the holder
      himself/herself.  Examples for unlinked pseudonyms are (non-
      public) biometrics like DNA information unless stored in databases
      including the linking to the holders.

   Public pseudonyms and initially unlinked pseudonyms can be seen as
   extremes of the described pseudonym aspect whereas initially non-
   public pseudonyms characterize the continuum in between.

   Anonymity is the stronger, the less is known about the linking to a
   subject.  The strength of anonymity decreases with increasing
   knowledge of the pseudonym linking.  In particular, under the
   assumption that no gained knowledge on the linking of a pseudonym
   will be forgotten and that the pseudonym cannot be transferred to
   other subjects, a public pseudonym never can become an unlinked
   pseudonym.  In each specific case, the strength of anonymity depends
   on the knowledge of certain parties about the linking relative to the
   chosen attacker model.

   If the pseudonym is transferable, the linking to its holder can
   change.  Considering an unobserved transfer of a pseudonym to another
   subject, a formerly public pseudonym can become non-public again.

   With respect to the degree of linkability, various kinds of
   pseudonyms may be distinguished according to the kind of context for
   their usage:

   Person pseudonym:  A person pseudonym is a substitute for the
      holder's name which is regarded as representation for the holder's
      civil identity.  It may be used in many different contexts, e.g.,
      a number of an identity card, the social security number, DNA, a
      nickname, the pseudonym of an actor, or a mobile phone number.

   Role pseudonym:  The use of role pseudonyms is limited to specific
      roles, e.g., a customer pseudonym or an Internet account used for
      many instantiations of the same role "Internet user".  The same
      role pseudonym may be used with different communication partners.
      Roles might be assigned by other parties, e.g., a company, but
      they might be chosen by the subject himself/herself as well.

   Relationship pseudonym:  For each communication partner, a different
      relationship pseudonym is used.  The same relationship pseudonym
      may be used in different roles for communicating with the same
      partner.  Examples are distinct nicknames for each communication
      partner.  In case of group communication, the relationship
      pseudonyms may be used between more than two partners.

   Role-relationship pseudonym:  For each role and for each
      communication partner, a different role-relationship pseudonym is
      used.  This means that the communication partner does not
      necessarily know, whether two pseudonyms used in different roles
      belong to the same holder.  On the other hand, two different
      communication partners who interact with a user in the same role,
      do not know from the pseudonym alone whether it is the same user.
      As with relationship pseudonyms, in case of group communication,
      the role-relationship pseudonyms may be used between more than two
      partners.

   Transaction pseudonym:  Apart from "transaction pseudonym" some
      employ the term "one-time-use pseudonym", taking the naming from
      "one-time pad".  For each transaction, a transaction pseudonym
      unlinkable to any other transaction pseudonyms and at least
      initially unlinkable to any other IOI is used, e.g., randomly
      generated transaction numbers for online-banking.  Therefore,
      transaction pseudonyms can be used to realize as strong anonymity
      as possible.  In fact, the strongest anonymity is given when there
      is no identifying information at all, i.e., information that would
      allow linking of anonymous entities, thus transforming the
      anonymous transaction into a pseudonymous one.  If the transaction
      pseudonym is used exactly once, we have the same strength of
      anonymity as if no pseudonym is used at all.  Another possibility
      to achieve strong anonymity is to prove the holdership of the
      pseudonym or specific attribute values (e.g., with zero-knowledge
      proofs) without revealing the information about the pseudonym or
      more detailed attribute values themselves.  Then, no identifiable
      or linkable information is disclosed.

   Linkability across different contexts due to the use of these
   pseudonyms can be represented as the lattice that is illustrated in
   the following diagram, see Figure 1.  The arrows point in direction
   of increasing unlinkability, i.e., A -> B stands for "B enables
   stronger unlinkability than A".  Note that "->" is not the same as
   "=>" of Appendix B, which stands for through the implication concerning
   anonymity and unobservability.

                                                             linkable

                                         +-----------------+  *
               Person                    |                 |  *
             / Pseudonym \                |   decreasing  |  *
           //             \\              |   linkability |  *
          /                 \             |    across    |  *
         /                   \-+           |  contexts   |  *
      +-/                      v           |            |   *
      v Role               Relationship    |            |  *
   Pseudonym               Pseudonym        |           |  *
       --                     --            |          |  *
         --                ---              |          |  *
           ---         ----                  |        |   *
              --+  +---                      |        |  *
                v  v                          |      |   *
            Role-Relationship                 |      |  |*
            Pseudonym                         |     |   *
                 |                             |    |   *
                 |                             |    |  *
                 |                             |   |   *
                 |                              |  |   *
                 |                              | |   *
                 v                              | |   *
            Transaction                          |   *
            Pseudonym                            |   v

                                                    unlinkable

       Figure 1: Lattice of pseudonyms according to their use across
                            different contexts

   In general, unlinkability of both role pseudonyms and relationship pseudonyms is stronger than unlinkability of person pseudonyms.  The
   strength of unlinkability increases with the application of role-
   relationship pseudonyms, the use of which is restricted to both the
   same role and the same relationship.  If a role-relationship
   pseudonym is used for roles comprising many kinds of activities, the
   danger arises that after a while, it becomes a person pseudonym in
   the sense of: "A person pseudonym is a substitute for the holder's
   name which is regarded as representation for the holder's civil
   identity."  This is even more true both for role pseudonyms and
   relationship pseudonyms.  Ultimate strength of unlinkability is
   obtained with transaction pseudonyms, provided that no other
   information, e.g., from the context or from the pseudonym itself,
   enabling linking is available.

   Anonymity is the stronger, where ...

   o  the less personal data of the pseudonym holder can be linked to
      the pseudonym;

   o  the less often and the less context-spanning pseudonyms are used
      and therefore the less data about the holder can be linked;

   o  the more often independently chosen, i.e., from an observer's
      perspective unlinkable, chosen pseudonyms are used for new actions.

   The amount of information of linked data can be reduced by different
   subjects using the same pseudonym (e.g., one after the other when
   pseudonyms are transferred or simultaneously with specifically
   created group pseudonyms) or by misinformation or disinformation.
   The group of pseudonym holders acts as an inner anonymity set within
   a, depending on context information, potentially even larger outer
   anonymity set.

7.  Identity Management

   Identity can be explained as an exclusive perception of life,
   integration into a social group, and continuity, which is bound to a
   body and - at least to some degree - shaped by society.  This concept
   of identity distinguishes between "I" and "Me" [Mead34] : "I" is the
   instance that is accessible only by the individual self, perceived as
   an instance of liberty and initiative.  "Me" is supposed to stand for
   the social attributes, defining a human identity that is accessible
   by communications and that is an inner instance of control and
   consistency (see [ICPP03] for more information).  In this
   terminology, we are interested in identity as communicated to others
   and seen by them.  Therefore, we concentrate on the "Me".

   Motivated by identity as an exclusive perception of life, i.e., a
   psychological perspective, but using terms defined
      actions (i.e., making them, from a computer
   science, i.e., a mathematical perspective (as we did in the sections
   before), identity can be explained and defined as a property of an
   entity in terms of the opposite of anonymity and the opposite of
   unlinkability.  In a positive wording, identity enables both observer's perspective,
      unlinkable)

   For Internet protocols it is important whether protocols allow
   identifiers to be
   identifiable as well as to link IOIs because of some continuity of
   life.  Here we have the opposite of anonymity (identifiability) and
   the opposite of unlinkability (linkability) as positive properties.
   So the perspective changes: What is the aim of an attacker w.r.t.

   anonymity, now is the aim of the subject under consideration, so the
   attacker's perspective becomes recycled dynamically, what the perspective lifetime of the subject.  And
   again, another attacker (attacker2) might be considered working
   against identifiability and/or linkability.  I.e., attacker2 might
   try
   pseudonyms are, to mask different attributes of whom they get exposed, how subjects are able to provide for some kind
   of anonymity or attacker2 might spoof some messages to interfere with
   the continuity of the subject's life.

   Definition:  An identity is any subset of attribute values of an
      individual person which sufficiently identifies this individual
      person within any set of persons.  So usually there is no such
      thing as "the identity", but several of them.

   Definition:  Identity management means managing various identities
      (usually denoted by pseudonyms) of an individual person, i.e.,
      administration of identity attributes including the development
      and choice of the partial identity
   control disclosure, and pseudonym to how often they can be (re-)used
      in a specific context or role.  Establishment of reputation is
      possible when the individual person re-uses partial identities.  A
      prerequisite to choose the appropriate partial identity is to
      recognize the situation the person is acting in.

   Of course, attribute values or even attributes themselves may change
   over time.  Therefore, if the attacker has no access to the change
   history of each particular attribute, the fact whether a particular
   subset of attribute values of an individual person is an identity or
   not may change changed over time as well.  If the attacker has access to the
   change history of each particular attribute, any subset forming an
   identity will form an identity from his perspective irrespective how
   attribute values change.  Any reasonable attacker will not just try
   to figure out attribute values per se, but the point in time (or even (and
   what the time frame) consequences are when they are valid (in), since regularly changed).  These
   aspects are described in [I-D.iab-privacy-considerations].

7.  Acknowledgments

   Parts of this change history helps document utilizes content from [anon_terminology],
   which had a lot long history starting in linking 2000 and thus inferring further attribute values.
   Therefore, it may clarify one's mind whose quality was
   improved due to define each "attribute" in a
   way that its value cannot get invalid.  So instead of the attribute
   "location" of a particular individual person, take the set of
   attributes "location at time x".  Depending on the inferences you are
   interested in, refining that set as feedback from a list ordered concerning
   "location" or "time" may be helpful.

   Identities may number of course comprise particular attribute values like
   names, identifiers, digital pseudonyms, and addresses - but they
   don't have to.

8.  Contributors people.  The authors
   would like to thank Andreas Pfitzmann for all his work on an earlier
   draft version of this document.

9.  Acknowledgments

   Before this document was submitted to

   Within the IETF it already had a long
   history starting at 2000 and a number of people helped to improve the
   quality of the document with their feedback.  A number of persons
   contributed had provided their feedback to the original writeup
   this document.  We would like to thank Scott Brim, Marc Linsner,
   Bryan McLaughlin, Nick Mathewson, Eric Rescorla, Alissa Cooper, Scott
   Bradner, Nat Sakimura, Bjoern Hoehrmann, David Singer, Dean Willis,
   Christine Runnegar, Lucy Lynch, Trend Adams, Mark Lizar, Martin
   Thomson, Josh Howlett, and they are acknowledged in
   http://dud.inf.tu-dresden.de/Anon_Terminology.shtml.

10. Mischa Tuffield.

8.  Security Considerations

   This document introduces terminology for talking about privacy by
   data minimization. within
   IETF specifications.  Since privacy protection often relies on
   security mechanisms then this document is also related to security in a
   its broader context.

11.

9.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not require actions by IANA.

12.

10.  References

12.1.

10.1.  Normative References

12.2.  Informative References

   [BuPf90]  Buerk, H. and A. Pfitzmann, "Value Exchange Systems
             Enabling Security

   [I-D.iab-privacy-considerations]  Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba,
                                     B., Peterson, J., and Unobservability", Computers &
             Security J. Morris,
                                     "Privacy Considerations for
                                     Internet Protocols",
                                     draft-iab-privacy-considerations-01
                                     (work in progress), October 2011.

   [id]                              "Identifier - Wikipeadia",
                                     Wikipedia , 9/8, 715-721, January 1990. 2011.

10.2.  Informative References

   [Chau81]                          Chaum, D., "Untraceable Electronic
                                     Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital
                                     Pseudonyms", Communications of the
                                     ACM , 24/2, 84-88, 1981.

   [ICPP03]  Independent Centre for Privacy Protection & Studio Notarile
             Genghini, "Identity Management Systems (IMS):
             Identification and Comparison Study", Study commissioned by
             the Joint Research Centre Seville, Spain , http://
             www.datenschutzzentrum.de/projekte/idmanage/study.htm,
             September 2003.

   [Mead34]  Mead, G., "Mind, Self and Society", Chicago Press , 1934.

   [Pfit96]  Pfitzmann, B., "Information Hiding Terminology -- Results
             of an informal plenary meeting and additional proposals",
             Information Hiding , NCS 1174, Springer, Berlin 1996, 347-
             350, 1996.

   [ReRu98]  Reiter, M. and A. Rubin, "Crowds: Anonymity for Web
             Transactions", ACM Transactions on Information and System
             Security , 1(1), 66-92, November 1998.

   [West67]  Westin, A., "Privacy and Freedom", Atheneum, New York ,
             1967.

   [Wils93]  Wilson, K., "The Columbia Guide to Standard American
             English", Columbia University Press, New York , 1993.

   [ZFKP98]  Zoellner,

   [RFC3325]                         Jennings, C., Peterson, J., Federrath, H., Klimant, H., Pfitzmann, A.,
             Piotraschke, R., Westfeld, A., Wicke, G., and G. Wolf,
             "Modeling the security of steganographic systems", 2nd
             Workshop on Information Hiding , LNCS 1525, Springer,
             Berlin 1998, 345-355, 1998.

   [id]      "Identifier - Wikipeadia", Wikipedia , 2011.

Appendix A.  Overview of Main Definitions and their Opposites

                                     o

                                      o

   +---------------------------------+---------------------------------+
   | Definition                      | Negation                        |
   +---------------------------------+---------------------------------+
   | Anonymity of a subject from an  | Identifiability of a subject    |
   | attacker's perspective means    | from an attacker's perspective  |
   | that the attacker cannot        | means that the attacker can     |
   | sufficiently identify the       | sufficiently identify the       |
   | subject within a set of         | subject within a set of         |
   | subjects, the anonymity set.    | subjects, the identifiability   |
   |                                 | set.                            |
   | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
   | Unlinkability of two or more    | Linkability of two or more      |
   | items of interest (IOIs, e.g.,  | items of interest (IOIs, e.g.,  |
   | subjects, messages, actions,    | subjects, messages, actions,    |
   | ...) from an attacker's         | ...) from an attacker's         |
   | perspective means that within   | perspective means that within   |
   | the system (comprising these    | the system (comprising these    |
   | and possibly other items), the  | and possibly other items), the  |
   | attacker cannot sufficiently    | attacker can sufficiently       |
   | distinguish whether these IOIs  | distinguish whether these IOIs  |
   | are related or not.             | are related or not.             |
   | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
   | Undetectability of an item of   | Detectability of an item of     |
   | interest (IOI) from an          | interest (IOI) from an          |
   | attacker's perspective means    | attacker's perspective means    |
   | that the attacker cannot        | that the attacker can           |
   | sufficiently distinguish        | sufficiently distinguish        |
   | whether it exists or not.       | whether it exists or not.       |
   | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
   | Unobservability of an item of   | Observability of an item of     |
   | interest (IOI) means            | interest (IOI) means "many      |
   | undetectability of the IOI      | possibilities to define the     |
   | against all subjects uninvolved | semantics".                     |
   | in it and anonymity of the      |                                 |
   | subject(s) involved in the IOI  |                                 |
   | even against the other          |                                 |
   | subject(s) involved in that     |                                 |
   | IOI.                            |                                 |
   +---------------------------------+---------------------------------+

Appendix B.  Relationships between Terms

   With respect M.
                                     Watson, "Private Extensions to the same attacker, unobservability reveals always
   only a subset of the information anonymity reveals.  [ReRu98] propose
   a continuum
                                     Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
                                     for describing the strength of anonymity.  They give
   names: "absolute privacy" (the attacker cannot perceive the presence
   of communication, i.e., unobservability) - "beyond suspicion" -
   "probable innocence" - "possible innocence" - "exposed" - "provably
   exposed" (the attacker can prove the sender, recipient, or their
   relationship to others).  Although we think that the terms "privacy" Asserted Identity within
                                     Trusted Networks", RFC 3325,
                                     November 2002.

   [anon_terminology]                Pfitzmann, A. and "innocence" are misleading, the spectrum is quite useful.  We
   might use the shorthand notation

      unobservability => anonymity A. Pfitzmann, "A
                                     terminology for that (=> reads "implies").  Using the same argument talking about
                                     privacy by data minimization:
                                     Anonymity, Unlinkability,
                                     Undetectability, Unobservability,
                                     Pseudonymity, and notation,
   we have

      sender unobservability => sender anonymity

      recipient unobservability => recipient anonymity

      relationship unobservability => relationship anonymity

   As noted above, we have

      sender anonymity => relationship anonymity

      recipient anonymity => relationship anonymity
      sender unobservability => relationship unobservability

      recipient unobservability => relationship unobservability

   With respect to the same attacker, unobservability reveals always
   only a subset of the information undetectability reveals

      unobservability => undetectability Identity
                                     Management", URL: http://
                                     dud.inf.tu-dresden.de/literatur/
                                     Anon_Terminology_v0.34.pdf ,
                                     version 034, 2010.

Authors' Addresses

   Marit Hansen (editor)
   ULD Kiel

   EMail: marit.hansen@datenschutzzentrum.de

   Hannes Tschofenig
   Nokia Siemens Networks
   Linnoitustie 6
   Espoo  02600
   Finland

   Phone: +358 (50) 4871445
   EMail: Hannes.Tschofenig@gmx.net
   URI:   http://www.tschofenig.priv.at

   Rhys Smith (editor)
   JANET(UK)

   EMail: rhys.smith@ja.net