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International Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies

PET 2007: Privacy Enhancing Technologies pp 1–16Cite as

Attacking Unlinkability: The Importance of Context

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 4776))

Abstract

A system that protects the unlinkability of certain data items (e. g. identifiers of communication partners, messages, pseudonyms, transactions, votes) does not leak information that would enable an adversary to link these items. The adversary could, however, take advantage of hints from the context in which the system operates. In this paper, we introduce a new metric that enables one to quantify the (un)linkability of the data items and, based on this, we consider the effect of some simple contextual hints.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739 München, Germany

    Matthias Franz & Bernd Meyer

  2. NEC Europe Ltd, Network Laboratories, Kurfürsten-Anlage 36, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany

    Andreas Pashalidis

Authors
  1. Matthias Franz
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  2. Bernd Meyer
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  3. Andreas Pashalidis
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Nikita Borisov Philippe Golle

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Franz, M., Meyer, B., Pashalidis, A. (2007). Attacking Unlinkability: The Importance of Context. In: Borisov, N., Golle, P. (eds) Privacy Enhancing Technologies. PET 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4776. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75551-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75551-7_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-75550-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-75551-7

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