Crowds: Anonymity for Web Transactions

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Author

Michael K. Reiter, Aviel D. Rubin

Entry type

article

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a system called Crowds for protecting users' anonymity on the world-wide-web. Crowds, named for the notion of "blending into a crowd", operates by grouping users into a large and geographically diverse group (crowd) that collectively issues requests on behalf of its members. Web servers are unable to learn the true source of a request because it is equally likely to have originated from any member of the crowd, and even collaborating crowd members cannot distinguish the originator of a request form a member who is merely forwarding the request on behalf of another. We describe the design, implementation, security, performance, and scalability of our system. Our security analysis introduces degrees of anonymity as an important tool for describing and proving anonymity properties.

Date

1998 – 06

Journal

ACM TISSEC

Key alpha

Reiter

Publisher

ACM

Affiliation

AT&T Labs

Publication Date

1998-06-01

Keywords

security, anonymous communication, world-wide-web

Language

English

Location

A hard-copy of this is in the Papers Cabinet

BibTex-formatted data

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@Article{ Reiter,
	title = "Crowds: Anonymity for Web Transactions",
	author = "Michael K. Reiter, Aviel D. Rubin",
	year = "1998",
	month = "06",
	journal = "ACM TISSEC",
	publisher = "ACM",
	abstract = "In this paper we introduce a system called Crowds for protecting users' anonymity on the world-wide-web.  Crowds, named for the notion of "blending into a crowd", operates by grouping users into a large and geographically diverse group (crowd) that collectively issues requests on behalf of its members.  Web servers are unable to learn the true source of a request because it is equally likely to have originated from any member of the crowd, and even collaborating crowd members cannot distinguish the originator of a request form a member who is merely forwarding the request on behalf of another.  We describe the design, implementation, security, performance, and scalability of our system.  Our security analysis introduces degrees of anonymity as an important tool for describing and proving anonymity properties.",
	affiliation = "AT&T Labs",
	keywords = "security, anonymous communication, world-wide-web",
	language = "English",
}