Privacy, anonymity and other confusing words Przemek Jaroszewski CERT Polska/NASK

Privacy as an inherent human right… Art. 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.. (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights) Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. (Schneier, 2006)

What is privacy? o the right to "be left alone" o control over personal information, private realm, private domain

What is private domain, then? A matter of judgement Defined by Culture Individual preferences

We need privacy to… o control (context of) information about us o protect ourselves from (unfair) judgment o make good relationships with others

Some more problems with privacy o While we protect our private space, we are interested in those of others o Not everyone is equal o Public persons o Criminals o Responsibility

(Some say): "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." (…) We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.. Bruce Schneier

But is the Internet indeed the right place to do it??

Internet is a public space! but what about…  private correspondence?  private chats?  online documents?

Information that we share online  personal data – used for purchases, social sites but also in online documents, including  other data of higher risk, eg. financial reports, private correspondence  information about activities, friends, lifestyle  search phrases and search results  visited sites  and much more…

The real threats to our privacy We don’t know that we share these data We don’t know what happens to these data We don’t know what it means when these data are stolen

TOR provides : - encryption - source IP hiding - no logging … anonymity You can hide clients and services using TOR!

The myth: When you browse the Internet, you leave your IP all over the place so everyone knows what you are doing and when. The truth: The IP address does not identify a person. Anonymizing services like TOR are used mainly by criminals, along with fast flux and botnet proxying.

The myth: Services protecting domain owners’ privacy are helping the Internet to be free and safe from interrogation. The truth: Most of PP sites are protecting criminals. Some are operated by them. Privacy of domain owners’ can be protected while providing accountability and appropriate methods for LE to access data.

Why anonymity in public is not a good idea? Zimbardo (1969) Diener et al. (1976) Johnson and Downing (1979)

In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. Privacy is incredibly important, (but) privacy is not the same thing as anonymity. It's very important that Google and everyone else respects people's privacy. People have a right to privacy; it's natural; it's normal. It's the right way to do things. [I]f you are trying to commit a terrible, evil crime, it's not obvious that you should be able to do so with complete anonymity. Eric Schmidt

Privacy vs Anonymity Reasonable privacy can be provided without complete anonymity as long as… access to data is restricted users control their data users understand who has access to their data users have trust in entities that can access their data

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance. Bruce Schneier

Conclusions o There is no complete privacy on the Internet – this is a feature, not a bug! o Users need a sense of privacy for their online well-being and it can be provided without sacrificing accountability. o Privacy is a delicate issue that involves emotions rather than reason. o Privacy is subjective so it is easy to blame someone for breaching it. o The best strategy is to be as transparent as possible when explaining policies to users and giving them as much control as possible. o Trust and be trusted!

”Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,” said Ponder. ”I seriously think they think it’s their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried. ” Terry Pratchett

Questions? Comments?