How to apply Database Anonymity Notions to Mix Networks

Abstract

Communication networks are an indispensable part of our society. By observing network traffic, one can acquire sensitive information about individuals, businesses, or governments. Thus, the protection of this traffic data is important and a well-researched topic. While encryption can protect the content of these messages, it can not hide the link between communication partners. Mix networks can be used to achieve this anonymity goal. However, these networks can not guarantee anonymity since they only apply technical protocols to improve anonymity. On the contrary, one can guarantee anonymity when releasing information from databases. Here, the principles of k-anonymity, l-diversity, and t-closeness can be applied to determine anonymity. In this work, we transfer these principles towards network anonymity, highlight problems that occur, and give an outlook on how a protocol could look like, with which users can build anonymity groups to guarantee anonymity.