Systems and Methods For Anonymity Protection
First Claim
1. A method for protecting anonymity over a network, the method comprising:
- ascertaining a set Q of one or more linkable attributes for a user;
determining a level of anonymity for the user by calculating a conditional entropy H(Φ
|Q) for user identity Φ
, given the set Q of linkable attributes;
initiating a responsive action based on the estimated level of anonymity.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In any situation where an individual'"'"'s personal attributes are at risk to be revealed or otherwise inferred by a third, there is a chance that such attributes may be linked back to the individual. Examples, of such situations include publishing user profile micro-data or information about social ties, sharing profile information on social networking sites or revealing personal information in computer-mediated communication. Measuring user anonymity is the first step to ensure that a users identity cannot be inferred. The systems and methods of the present disclosure, embrace an information-entropy-based estimation of the user anonymity level which may be used to predict identity inference risk. One important aspect of the present disclosure is complexity reduction with respect to the anonymity calculations.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method for protecting anonymity over a network, the method comprising:
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ascertaining a set Q of one or more linkable attributes for a user; determining a level of anonymity for the user by calculating a conditional entropy H(Φ
|Q) for user identity Φ
, given the set Q of linkable attributes;initiating a responsive action based on the estimated level of anonymity. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A system for protecting anonymity over a network the system, comprising:
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a non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer executable instructions for; ascertaining a set Q of one or more linkable attributes for a user; and determining a level of anonymity for the user by calculating a conditional entropy H(Φ
|Q) for user identity Φ
, given the set Q of linkable attributes. - View Dependent Claims (22)
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Specification